Associate Director, Data Engineering

Data Engineer, Associate Director

As the traditional marketing funnel collapses and fragmentation increases, clients rely on Publicis Collective to connect media, data, technology, and teams by what matters most - business outcomes. We're a full-service media agency where nearly half our experts focus on data, research, analytics, technology, or strategy. At Publicis Collective, 100% of our 2,200 global practitioners can access advanced insights and scale media with precision through our proprietary OS, powering marketing that drives measurable business performance and transformation.

We are seeking an experienced Data Engineer with Associate Director-level maturity to design, build, and own the data foundations that power analytics, optimization, AI/ML, and advanced decisioning platforms.

This role is hands-on and composes system architecture, with end-to-end ownership across data pipeline creation, platform standards, and production reliability, while also influencing roadmap direction and mentoring other engineers.

Responsibilities

Data Platform Architecture & Design

Own the design and architecture of scalable, cloud-based data platforms built on Databricks, Apache Spark, and Delta Lake

Define and evolve data schemas, domain models, and canonical datasets to support analytics, ML, and downstream applications

Establish platform standards for batch and streaming pipelines, data contracts, and schema evolution

Partner with product, analytics, and data science teams to translate business objectives into robust technical architectures

Data Pipeline Engineering & Implementation

Design, build, and maintain production-grade ETL/ELT pipelines using Databricks, Spark, SQL, and Python

Implement high-performance transformations for large-scale datasets with a focus on reliability, scalability, and cost efficiency

Support both batch and near-real-time data processing use cases

Ensure pipelines produce feature-ready, analytics-ready datasets for reporting and machine learning

Operational Ownership & Reliability

Own production data pipelines end to end, including monitoring, alerting, and incident response

Define SLAs for data freshness, availability, and quality, and ensure consistency across platforms

Implement data quality checks, validation rules, and observability to detect drift and failures early

Lead root cause analysis and remediation for complex pipeline or data issues

Governance, Security & Data Management

Implement and enforce data governance, access controls, and lineage using tools such as Unity Catalog

Design secure data sharing patterns and support privacy safe, clean room ready architectures where required

Ensure compliance with internal data standards, privacy requirements, and security procedures

Technical Leadership & Influence

Act as a technical leader and mentor for other data engineers, setting guidelines and reviewing designs

Contribute to platform roadmap planning, technical decision making, and prioritization

Collaborate multi-functionally with engineering, AI/ML, analytics, and client facing teams

Drive continuous improvement in engineering standards, tooling, and development workflows

Qualifications

Core Technical Expertise

Strong hands on experience with Databricks, Apache Spark, and Delta Lake in production environments

Advanced proficiency in Python for data engineering and pipeline development

Expert level SQL skills, including performance tuning and complex transformations

Deep understanding of data modeling, schema design, and large scale data processing patterns

Data Engineering & Platform Experience

Proven experience designing and operating scalable data pipelines supporting analytics and AI/ML workloads

Experience with cloud data architectures on AWS and/or Azure

Strong understanding of ETL/ELT patterns, batch vs. streaming tradeoffs, and pipeline orchestration

Experience optimizing data systems for performance, cost, and reliability

Governance, Quality & Operations

Experience implementing data governance, access controls, and lineage

Familiarity with data quality frameworks, observability, and monitoring in production systems

Hands on experience supporting production SLAs, incident management, and operational runbooks

Leadership & Collaboration

Experience operating at a senior IC, manager, or director level with clear technical ownership

Ability to translate ambiguous business requirements into clear technical solutions and architectures

Strong communication skills with both technical and non technical stakeholders

Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and lead by example through hands on contribution

Preferred / Nice to Have

Experience supporting AI/ML or advanced analytics platforms

Familiarity with feature engineering and model ready data pipelines

Exposure to DataOps / MLOps practices

Experience working in complex, multi team or platform oriented environments

Additional information

Our Publicis Groupe motto "Viva La Différence" means we're better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger. It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization. We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.

Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive. Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact USMSTACompliance@publicis.com.

Compensation Range: $112,290.00 - $179,712.00 Annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. Temporary roles may also qualify for participation in our 401(k) plan after eligibility criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 5/17/26.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.