Sr Manager, Data Platforms and Analytics (Databricks)

Live the experience. From professional empowerment to continual learning opportunities. From ongoing investment in new and emerging technologies to a career of self-determination. At Ulta Beauty, our tech team is critical to our scalability—and is recognized that way. We’ve been defined as a “mature start-up.” A place where interdepartmental exposure, open doors, and genuine collaboration is ubiquitous. Where challenges come fast and furious, requiring agility, mental dexterity, and creativity. Where our passion for better solutions drives us and is core to who we are.

We’re engineering for the future of retail, and it’s no-holds-barred. But for those motivated by continual change and ambiguity, by superior leadership, by whip smart colleagues who will press you daily for your very best, you’ll find that virtually nothing’s impossible at Ulta Beauty.

THE IMPACT YOU CAN MAKE:

The Sr Manager, Data Architecture and Platforms defines and drives architectural strategy across multiple domains, platforms, or a significant portfolio. This leadership role addresses high-ambiguity, cross-organizational challenges with long-term consequences, influences senior leaders and investment decisions, and creates durable organizational impact through strategy, standards, governance, and development of other technical leaders - not through people management. Provides technical leadership for modern data platforms, scalable data engineering solutions and future state analytics such as AI/BI.

YOU’LL ACCOMPLISH THESE GOALS BY:

• Lead, develop, and mentor teams of Data Architects and Data Platform Engineers, providing technical direction and guidance.
• Define and execute enterprise data architecture and platform strategies, target-state architectures, technology roadmaps, and modernization initiatives.
• Own the architecture, engineering, and operational maturity of enterprise data platforms, including Databricks Lakehouse, BigQuery, and supporting cloud technologies.
• Establish architecture standards, reference patterns, governance frameworks, and engineering best practices across Data Engineering, Business Intelligence, and analytics platforms.
• Oversee the design and implementation of scalable data platform capabilities, including data ingestion, processing, storage, integration, orchestration, and consumption.
• Drive platform reliability, performance, scalability, security, cost optimization, automation, and operational excellence.
• Establish engineering practices for CI/CD, infrastructure as code, monitoring, observability, incident management, and platform lifecycle management.
• Guide enterprise BI architecture, including Power BI integration, semantic modeling, governed data access, and analytics enablement.
• Lead platform modernization and migration initiatives, reducing technical debt and improving interoperability across enterprise data technologies.
• Partner with Data Engineering, BI, Security, Infrastructure, AI/ML, Product, and business teams to align platform capabilities with enterprise needs.
• Manage team priorities, resource allocation, delivery commitments, platform investments, and vendor relationships to achieve business outcomes.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, including Databricks AI/BI, AI-enabled engineering, and cloud-native data capabilities, to drive innovation and platform efficiency.
• Foster a culture of architecture excellence, engineering accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and technical talent development.
• Use approved AI-enabled tools responsibly to accelerate research, analysis, modeling, documentation, and architecture workflows while validating outputs and protecting company data and intellectual property.

ESSENTIALS FOR SUCCESS:

• 12+ years of progressive experience in Data Engineering, Data Architecture, Business Intelligence, cloud platforms, or related technology disciplines.
• Demonstrated people management experience leading Data Architects, Platform Engineers, or related technical teams.
• Strong hands-on expertise in Databricks, Apache Spark, PySpark, SQL, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and Lakehouse architecture.
• Proven experience designing scalable batch and streaming data pipelines, data integration frameworks, and modern data engineering solutions.
• Strong knowledge of Power BI architecture, semantic modeling, dimensional modeling, reporting solutions, and performance optimization.
• Experience driving data platform modernization, architecture standards, and enterprise technology integration.
• Strong communication, collaboration, technical leadership, and influencing skills across engineering teams and senior stakeholders.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Experience in complex enterprise environments; retail or high-volume consumer technology experience preferred.
  
  

At Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ: ULTA), the possibilities are beautiful. Ulta Beauty is the largest North American beauty retailer and the premier beauty destination for cosmetics, fragrance, skin care products, hair care products and salon services. We bring possibilities to life through the power of beauty each and every day in our stores and online with more than 25,000 products from approximately 500 well-established and emerging beauty brands across all categories and price points, including Ulta Beauty’s own private label. Ulta Beauty also offers a full-service salon in every store featuring—hair, skin, brow, and make-up services.

We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest records, conviction records, or other criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of any applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the New York City Fair Chance Act.