IT Technical Lead (Data)

General Summary:

Technical lead will play a critical role in shaping the future of our data capabilities as part of strategic and critical Enterprise Data Transformation (EDT) program. We''re seeking a visionary, hands-on leader to drive the building out of a modern enterprise-wide lake house with scalable, reliable and business intuitive data architecture for supporting self-service capabilities across Data & Analytics solutions.

 

This role requires full-time onsite work in San Diego, CA (5 days per week).

 

Minimum Qualifications:

• 8+ years of IT-related work experience with a Bachelor''s degree.
OR
10+ years of IT-related work experience without a Bachelor’s degree.

 

 

Key Responsibilities:

Vision and Strategy:  Define and lead the vision, strategy, roadmap for data solutions(Data warehouses, governance, data quality, application development, enterprise planning and observability etc.), aligning with business objectives and technological advancements to enable data solutions as the strategic enabler for AI

 

BI, Analytics & Self?Service Enablement

• Establish and lead BI and Analytics Centers of Excellence (CoEs), enabling governed self?service analytics through semantic layers, certified KPIs, dashboards, and reporting solutions.

• Partner with business stakeholders to drive analytics adoption, from ideation through production and scale, using modern cloud BI and AI?augmented analytics tools.

 

Agentic AI & Intelligent Automation

• Design and implement agentic AI workflows, where autonomous or semi?autonomous agents orchestrate data access, ML inference, decision logic, and actions.

• Build multi?step agent pipelines that combine rules, ML models, and reasoning components to solve complex business problems.

• Integrate agentic systems with enterprise data, ML models, and applications to enable intelligent automation and decision support.

 

Databricks Application Development

• Design and develop Databricks?native applications, including notebook?based apps, interactive dashboards, and parameterized data/ML workflows.

• Enable data products, APIs, and integration patterns that support operational and analytical use cases across the enterprise

• Ensure Databricks apps meet performance, security, governance, and usability standards.

 

Traditional Machine Learning & Analytics

• Design, develop, and deploy traditional machine learning models, including regression, classification, clustering, time?series forecasting, and anomaly detection.

• Perform feature engineering, model selection, training, validation, and performance tuning on large?scale enterprise datasets.

• Apply sound statistical and ML best practices to ensure model robustness, explainability, and business relevance.

 

Governance & Security: Enforce data governance policies, access controls, and compliance using tools like Unity Catalog or AWS Lake Formation.

 

Technical Leadership & Influence

• Serve as a technical authority in traditional ML, agentic AI, and Databricks application patterns.

• Influence architectural decisions, best practices, and technical standards across teams.

• Mentor peers and raise the bar on ML rigor, engineering quality, and production readiness.

 

Stakeholder Collaboration: Serve as the primary liaison between business units and technical teams to translate business requirements into technical roadmaps.

 

Preferred Qualifications:

• 14+ years of IT-related work experience in Data and Analytics domain with a Bachelor''s degree.

• 7+ years of enterprise data modelling experience.

• 3+ years of work experience in a role requiring interaction with senior leadership, leading modernization of Data platforms.

• Strong functional knowledge across Sales, Marketing, Customer Support, Supply Chain, Finance and other corporate functions

• Deep hands-on technical understanding in building complex data models for supporting various analytics needs

• Comfortable in working with cross-functional teams such as Data Engineering, Analytics, SMEs and Business stakeholders - Passion to understand complex existing footprint of data solutions and build out the strategy for migrating to Databricks medallion architecture - Accountability and Ownership of the delivery in driving the projects to completion

 

Qualifications:

• 7+ years of IT-related work experience with a Bachelor''s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems or a related field OR 9+ years of IT-related work experience without a Bachelor’s degree.

• 5+ years of work experience with programming (e.g., Java, Python).

• 3+ years of work experience with SQL or NoSQL Databases.

• 3+ years of work experience with Data Structures and algorithms.

• Bachelor''s or Master''s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Information Technology, or a related field.

• 12+ years of experience in data management, data engineering, or data science roles, with at least 7 years in building enterprise level data models as part of data modernization and DW migration efforts.

• Strong understanding and hands-on experience with Lakehouse medallion data architecture and governance

• Proven implementation experience with migrating legacy DW data models to 3-layer medallion architecture.

• Strong passion in exploring GenAI based solutions for documenting the existing DW footprint and build out strategic data model for Databricks platform

• Experience with machine learning, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics is a plus.

• Excellent leadership, communication, and collaboration skills in a global hybrid delivery model

• Strong problem-solving skills with strategic thought process and self-initiative and proactive soft skills

 

 

 

 

Determining compensation for this role (and others) at Vaco/Highspring depends upon a wide array of factors including but not limited to the individual’s skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, office location and other geographic considerations, as well as other business and organizational needs. With that said, as required by local law in geographies that require salary range disclosure, Vaco/Highspring notes the salary range for the role is noted in this job posting. The individual may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses, and can participate in medical, dental, and vision benefits as well as the company’s 401(k) retirement plan. Additional disclaimer: Unless otherwise noted in the job description, the position Vaco/Highspring is filing for is occupied. Please note, however, that Vaco/Highspring is regularly asked to provide talent to other organizations. By submitting to this position, you are agreeing to be included in our talent pool for future hiring for similarly qualified positions. Submissions to this position are subject to the use of AI to perform preliminary candidate screenings, focused on ensuring minimum job requirements noted in the position are satisfied. Further assessment of candidates beyond this initial phase within Vaco/Highspring will be otherwise assessed by recruiters and hiring managers. Vaco/Highspring does not have knowledge of the tools used by its clients in making final hiring decisions and cannot opine on their use of AI products.