Director of Data Engineering & Data Science - IAA

Job description

**About the Role** IAA is seeking a **Director of Data Engineering & Data Science** to lead a highly visible, business-critical function at the intersection of **data, analytics, machine learning, and business transformation**. This leader will define and drive the vision, architecture, and execution for IAA’s data engineering and data science capabilities, ensuring the organization can scale advanced analytics, BI, forecasting, machine learning, and AI solutions that directly support business growth and operational excellence. This role requires a **strong technical leader and business problem solver** who can partner across a broad set of stakeholders including **Operations, Business, Sales, Marketing, Product, and Engineering**. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in the **Azure BI and data ecosystem**, strong people leadership, and the ability to translate complex business needs into practical, scalable data and AI solutions. This position reports directly to the **VP of Engineering** and is a **critical, high-visibility leadership role** within the organization. **What You’ll Do** - Lead the **Data Engineering and Data Science Engineering** function for IAA, setting technical vision, delivery strategy, and operating rhythm - Build and evolve scalable data platforms, BI architecture, and ML-enablement capabilities using the **Azure data and analytics stack** - Drive strategy and execution across **Microsoft Fabric, Synapse, Power BI, Azure BI technologies**, and modern cloud data platforms - Partner with business and functional leaders to solve high-value problems across **Operations, Sales, Marketing, Product, and other key areas** - Guide the design and implementation of robust pipelines, semantic models, dashboards, self-service analytics, forecasting solutions, and machine learning systems - Help shape the roadmap for advanced analytics, predictive modeling, experimentation, and AI-driven insights - Mentor, coach, and grow data engineering and data science talent while raising the technical bar across the team - Establish strong engineering practices across architecture, delivery quality, scalability, governance, and operational excellence - Collaborate closely with engineering leaders and cross-functional teams to ensure data and AI solutions are aligned with platform, product, and business priorities - Act as a senior thought partner to leadership on data strategy, technical tradeoffs, and investment priorities **What We’re Looking For** - Proven experience leading **Data Engineering, BI, Analytics, and/or Data Science Engineering** teams at the **Director** level or equivalent - Deep expertise in the **Azure BI / data technology stack**, including: - **Microsoft Fabric** - **Azure Synapse Analytics** - **Power BI** - Broader Azure data and analytics services - Strong understanding of **data engineering architecture**, modern analytics platforms, and scalable data pipelines - Strong foundation in **data science, machine learning, and model operationalization** - Demonstrated ability to solve complex business problems through data, analytics, and technical leadership - Strong mentoring, coaching, and people leadership skills with experience growing high-performing technical teams - Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; able to work effectively with a **wide range of technical and non-technical partners such as Ops, Business, Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering** - Ability to operate successfully in a fast-paced, high-visibility environment with multiple priorities and stakeholders - Strong executive presence and the ability to connect technical decisions to business outcomes **Preferred Experience** - Experience supporting enterprise use cases across **operations, commercial functions, and product-driven organizations** - Experience driving both **BI modernization** and **data science / ML adoption** within the same organization - Familiarity with cloud-native engineering practices, production-grade data platforms, and secure, scalable AI/ML environments - Experience leading organizations that combine **data engineering, analytics engineering, BI, and data science**under one leadership model **IAA Data Science / Engineering Technology Environment** We are looking for a leader who can guide and expand a modern data and AI ecosystem. Relevant technologies include Azure BI capabilities as well as IAA’s broader data science and ML toolset, including technologies such as **Python, SQL, Azure Event Hub, Apache Airflow, Synapse, Fabric, Docker, Terraform, DBT, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Vertex AI, Gemini, GPT, Prophet, TBATS, SARIMAX, scikit-learn, CI/CD pipelines, and Azure cloud platform**. **Why This Role Matters** This is a **critical leadership role** for IAA. The Director will help shape how the company uses data, analytics, BI, and AI to make better decisions, improve business performance, unlock operational efficiencies, and create scalable competitive advantage. This leader will influence both technical direction and business outcomes across the organization.