Director of Engineering - Data & AI Platform

The next part of your journey is right around the corner — with The Standard. A genuine desire to make a difference in the lives of others is the foundation for everything we do. With a customer-first mindset and an intentional focus on building strong teams, we’ve been able to uphold our legacy of financial stability while investing in new, innovative technologies that support the needs of our customers. Our high-performance culture focused on operational excellence thrives thanks to remarkable people united by compassion and a customer-first commitment. Are you ready to make a difference? Job Summary The Director, Data & AI Platform Engineering leads the engineering strategy, development, delivery, and operational excellence of the enterprise Data & AI Platform. This role combines enterprise technology leadership with the development of high-performing engineering teams spanning data engineering, software engineering, AI/ML platform engineering, DevOps, DevSecOps, DataOps, MLOps, and LLMOps. Working closely with Product, Architecture, Governance, Security, Risk, Enterprise Delivery, Analytics & BI, and AI Product teams, the Director delivers a governed, reusable, self-service platform foundation. This leader is responsible for engineering execution across Foundational Data & AI Products, Integration & Runtime, and the Shared Substrate, with capabilities designed to be defined once, governed once, and consumed by many. Key Responsibilities: Engineering Leadership and Team Development Lead and develop multidisciplinary engineering teams while building a culture of ownership, collaboration, engineering excellence, and continuous improvement. Coach engineering managers, technical leads, architects, and senior engineers; build succession plans and strengthen leadership capacity. Lead workforce planning, hiring, onboarding, performance management, capability development, and talent retention. Establish clear accountability and decision-making across distributed teams and engineering disciplines. Platform Engineering Strategy and Delivery Set and execute the engineering strategy for the shared Data & AI Platform in partnership with platform product leadership and architecture. Deliver platform-managed capabilities across Foundational Data & AI Products, Integration & Runtime, and Shared Substrate. Guide engineering investment in canonical data products, the governed context foundation, model and tool gateways, registries, agent runtime, APIs, lakehouse, catalog, compute, storage, and golden-path automation. Balance near-term delivery with platform sustainability, reuse, scalability, and the thin-platform boundary. Operational Excellence and Governance Ensure platform services are reliable, secure, observable, supportable, and operated to published service objectives. Establish engineering standards for architecture, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, automated testing, observability, incident response, resilience, documentation, and operational readiness. Partner with Governance, Security, Risk, and Architecture so policy is technically enforced while architecture pattern-setting remains distinct from policy ownership. Use delivery, reliability, quality, contract-conformance, adoption, and consumer-feedback measures to drive continuous improvement. Enterprise Partnership and Execution Build strong partnerships across business, data, AI, product, architecture, governance, and enterprise technology organizations. Communicate engineering priorities, delivery progress, operational health, risks, dependencies, and outcomes to senior stakeholders. Enable self-service golden paths so consumers can build compliant solutions without embedding or waiting on the platform team. Manage capacity, vendors, dependencies, and organizational scaling in alignment with the platform roadmap. Skills and Background You’ll Need Education: A Bachelor’s degree is required. Experience: Minimum 8 – 10 years’ experience within IT and 3+ years’ experience managing IT employees Demonstrated experience leading enterprise-scale data, technology, platform, product, or analytics organizations and developing high-performing teams. Strong strategic planning, prioritization, communication, stakeholder partnership, and organizational change leadership skills. Experience operating in a regulated environment with governance, security, privacy, audit, risk, and access-control expectations. Key Behaviors of a Successful Candidate Driving Success: Demonstrates energy and persistence when tackling complex challenges and views difficult problems as opportunities to create value. Winning Together: Builds trust and strong working relationships across teams, values diverse perspectives, and fosters collaboration to achieve shared objectives. Strategic Visioning: Considers future scenarios, opportunities, and risks to develop thoughtful recommendations that align with the company's long-term strategic objectives. #LI-Remote Why Join The Standard? We have built an enduring legacy of stability, financial strength and exceptional customer service through the contributions of the service-oriented people who choose to work at The Standard. To ensure we can attract and retain the best talent, when you join The Standard you can expect: A rich benefits package including medical, dental, vision and a 401(k) plan with matching company contributions An annual incentive bonus plan Generous paid time off including 11 holidays, 2 wellness days, and 8 volunteer hours annually — PTO increases with tenure A supportive, responsive management approach and opportunities for career growth and advancement Paid parental leave and adoption/surrogacy assistance An employee giving program that double matches your donations to eligible nonprofits and schools In addition to the competitive salary range below, our employee-focused benefits support work-life balance. Learn more about working at The Standard. Eligibility to participate in an incentive program is subject to the rules governing the program and plan. Any award depends on a variety of factors including individual and organizational performance. The actual compensation for this role will be based on a combination of education and experience, knowledge and skills, position budget, internal equity, and market data. Salary Range: $147,750.00 - $280,750.00 Positions will be posted for at least 5 days from original posting date. Standard Insurance Company, The Standard Life Insurance Company of New York, Standard Retirement Services, Inc., StanCorp Mortgage Investors, LLC, StanCorp Investment Advisers, Inc., and American Heritage Life Insurance Company and American Heritage Service Company, marketed as The Standard, are Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employers. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or veteran status or any other condition protected by federal, state or local law. Except where precluded by state or federal law, The Standard will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. The Standard offers a drug- and alcohol-free work environment where possession, manufacture, transfer, offer, use of or being impaired by an illegal substance while on The Standard's property, or in other cases which the company believes might affect operations, safety or reputation of the company is prohibited. The Standard requires a criminal background investigation and employment, education and licensing verification as a condition of employment. After any conditional offer of employment is made, the background check will include an individualized assessment based on the applicant’s specific record and the duties and requirements of the specific job. Applicants will be provided an opportunity to explain and correct background information. All employees of The Standard must be bondable.