Associate Director, Data Platforms

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Role Summary

Reporting to the Director, AI Strategy and Data Platforms, as the Associate Director, Data Platforms, your primary accountability is to operationalize and evolve the enterprise data platform strategy. You will act as the technical and strategic authority across our core platforms: Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, and Databricks. Bridging the gap between high-level business needs and deep technical architecture, you will shape the long‑term vision and interoperability of our data platform ecosystem, build cross‑platform enablers, and partner with business units (Investments, Oxford, Pensions, and Corporate Functions) to ensure we are maximizing the value of the data platform landscape.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive the strategic alignment and technical execution of the OMERS multi‑platform data ecosystem, heavily prioritizing Microsoft Fabric and Snowflake as core platforms, alongside Databricks for advanced analytics and ML workloads.
• Partner with technical and business stakeholders to translate business demand into required data capabilities and ensure our data platform ecosystem is providing exceptional value to all business units.
• Collaborate with the Enterprise Architecture team to define and standardize cross‑platform architectural patterns, including standard ingestion and landing zones, shared semantic layers, and cross‑platform data sharing via zero‑copy federation.
• Collaborate with enterprise transformation initiatives to ensure the data platform rollout and capabilities are fit‑for‑purpose.
• Lead efforts to close gaps in a multi‑platform environment by integrating cross‑platform pipeline orchestration.
• Collaborate with the Value Management, Risk & Governance team and enterprise data governance, observability, and cataloging tools.
• Collaborate with teams across D&T to ensure that our data platform capabilities are aligned with our AI strategy and roadmap.
• Act as a deep technical subject matter expert, getting hands‑on when necessary to validate architectures, troubleshoot complex integration challenges, and transition data concepts into robust production environments.
• Monitor industry trends across the modern data stack to continuously refine and enhance the data platform strategy and stack.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of progressive experience in data engineering, data architecture, or data platform strategy roles, with a proven track record of driving technical transformations.
• 5+ years of hands‑on technical experience designing, deploying, and optimizing modern cloud data platforms, with deep expertise in Microsoft Fabric (Azure Data Factory, ADLS, Power BI) and Snowflake.
• 4+ years of experience leading and developing high‑performing technical teams, with a demonstrated ability to scale capabilities and deliver complex initiatives.
• Strong technical proficiency in Databricks, specifically regarding its positioning for MLflow, advanced analytics, and unified lakehouse architectures.
• Deep understanding of enterprise data concepts, including data pipelines, data refineries/warehousing, cross‑platform data sharing, and semantic metrics management.
• Experience integrating data platforms with overarching data management and governance tooling (e.g., Collibra, Informatica) and modern workflow orchestration (e.g., Prefect).
• Prior experience in financial services, particularly within capital markets, private markets, or pensions, is considered a strong asset.
• Excellent capability to balance big‑picture strategic thinking with the technical depth required to challenge and guide engineering teams.
• Exceptional communication and executive stakeholder engagement skills, with a proven ability to translate complex architectural trade‑offs into clear business outcomes.
• Ability to thrive in a fast‑paced environment and lead cross‑functional initiatives without always relying on direct reporting lines.

Benefits & Work Environment

We believe that time together in the office is important for OMERS and Oxford, the strength of our employees, and the work we do for our pension members. In delivering on our pension promise, keeping us connected to our work and each other, our flexible hybrid work guideline requires teams to come in to the office 4 days per week.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

The expected salary range for this position is $138,000 - 188,000 per year. You may also be eligible to receive an annual Incentive Award pursuant to our Short‑term Incentive plan and our Long‑Term Incentive plan (if applicable), and to participate in our group benefits and retirement plans – details on these elements of compensation are included within OMERS & Oxford offer letters.

From hire to retire, we are an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive, barrier‑free recruitment and selection process that extends all the way through your employee experience. Our sense of belonging and connection is cultivated up, down and across our global organization thanks to our vast network of Employee Resource Groups with executive leader sponsorship, our Purpose@Work committee and employee recognition programs.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are used to support certain stages of the OMERS recruitment process. While AI assists us in our process, human judgment and decision‑making remain central to our candidate experience.

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