Data Platform Engineering Director

CONFIDENTIAL — We are conducting a confidential search for a Data Platform Engineering Director to lead the design, build, and scaling of enterprise data infrastructure. This is a high-impact, director-level opportunity based in Amsterdam on a hybrid model for a senior engineering leader who will own the end-to-end data platform strategy, from ingestion and storage through to real-time analytics and ML-serving infrastructure.

In this role, you will architect and scale modern data platforms using technologies such as Spark, Kafka, Flink, dbt, and cloud-native data services across AWS, Azure, or GCP. You will lead the adoption of data mesh or data fabric architectures, establish robust data governance and quality frameworks, and build self-service analytics capabilities that empower product and business teams. You will oversee DataOps and MLOps pipelines, ensure GDPR-compliant data handling, and drive innovation in real-time streaming, feature stores, and data lakehouse architectures.

You will build and scale high-performing data engineering teams, champion engineering excellence and platform reliability, and partner with data science, product, and business stakeholders to deliver measurable data-driven outcomes. Full P&L accountability for the data platform portfolio is integral to this mandate.

This is a rare opportunity to shape the data engineering backbone of a data-intensive organisation from Amsterdam — one of Europe's leading tech and data hubs.

Nice to have

• Experience with data mesh architecture at scale
• Familiarity with Databricks, Snowflake, or BigQuery
• Dutch language proficiency
• Track record building data platforms for ML/AI workloads
• Experience with real-time streaming at high throughput