Director of Data Science & Engineering

ActBlue is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating cutting-edge technology that fuels Democratic victories and enables progressive causes to thrive. The Director of Data Science & Engineering will lead the department to foster a data-centric culture, build teams, and develop systems that provide organizational insights and enhance product experiences. This role involves overseeing data teams and guiding the evolution of data systems to support the organization's goals.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with leaders across the organization to develop and execute on a data strategy inline with ActBlue's near and long term goals, including supporting organizational growth through acquisitions and partnerships
• Foster a data centric culture by upleveling our ability to make data-informed decisions and build best in class data products that meet rigorous performance and reliability standards
• Enable and advocate for AI/ML driven products and features across the ActBlue Platform through building scalable machine learning infrastructure that serves production environments and identifying new opportunities to deploy data science and analytics capacity in service of our mission
• Oversee our Data Science, Data Analytics, Data Engineering, and Data Platform teams in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment
• Guide the evolution of our data systems, tools, and architecture to meet the organization's needs, including data consolidation, governance frameworks, and unified data models across multiple entities
• Ensure high-quality communication and a stakeholder-centric approach between our data teams and their internal customers, with an emphasis on responsiveness and partnership during high-stakes moments

Requirements:

• 8+ years or equivalent in successfully managing and leading Data teams
• 2+ years of leading Data organizations of size 20 or more
• Expertise in the use of data science in strategic and operational decision-making
• Expertise in statistics and quantitative analysis
• Expertise in data security and compliance
• Strong familiarity with Data Engineering, Data platforms, and tools for high performance big data infrastructure
• Experience building production-grade ML/AI systems, including feature engineering pipelines, model deployment, and performance monitoring
• Track record of driving technical excellence and pushing engineering teams to deliver at a higher level
• Effective cross-functional collaborator who can effectively partner across business functions to understand needs, manage expectations, and oversee joint projects in dynamic, sometimes ambiguous environments
• Outstanding stakeholder orientation with a strong desire to be of service, particularly during critical deadlines and organizational complexity
• Ability to navigate multi-stakeholder environments and build alignment across different organizational structures
• Experience leading data integration efforts through mergers and acquisitions, including building centralized data lakes, harmonizing data models across disparate systems, and establishing unified governance frameworks
• Background or experience in electoral politics and/or the political technology space, including familiarity with campaign cycles, compliance requirements, and deadline-driven delivery
• Previous experience in payments, b2b, and/or two-sided marketplaces
• Background in analytics and reporting
• Experience managing data integration projects across organizations or through M&A activity
• Familiarity with Redshift, AWS, dbt, Looker, and Fivetran
• Experience managing in an organized labor environment or demonstrated ability to quickly learn and navigate collective bargaining frameworks
• Product management skills: conceiving and evaluating concepts for new data products based on understanding of market and user needs
• Tactical product management: leading a team in the design and implementation of new data products
• Experience establishing data governance standards, SLA frameworks, and operational excellence practices