Director of Data & Artificial Intelligence

Job Description

Job Description

Octagon Talent Solutions is seeking a highly skilled and visionary Director of Data Science & Artificial Intelligence in the Fort Lauderdale, FL area to lead enterprise data, analytics, and AI initiatives. This role reports to senior executive leadership and will serve as the bridge between business strategy, data architecture, and technical execution across Microsoft Fabric, Azure Data Factory, Databricks, Spark/PySpark, Delta Lake, and medallion architecture. The ideal candidate brings executive presence, hands-on credibility, and the ability to influence senior stakeholders while guiding technical teams through modernization, governance, reporting, and AI-readiness initiatives.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the Data Science, Analytics, and AI function with executive-level ownership of enterprise data strategy, platform modernization, reporting, governance, and AI enablement.
• Report to senior executive leadership and act as a strategic advisor to business leaders, translating operational priorities into scalable data, analytics, and AI solutions.
• Own the roadmap for a modern hybrid data ecosystem across Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, Azure Data Factory, Delta Lake, and medallion architecture.
• Guide the design and implementation of lakehouse and warehouse structures in Microsoft Fabric and Databricks, ensuring scalable bronze, silver, and gold data layers that support reporting, analytics, and AI use cases.
• Oversee Azure Data Factory orchestration, ETL/ELT pipeline strategy, data movement, and integration patterns across enterprise source systems.
• Provide technical leadership across Spark/PySpark, SQL, Databricks workflows, Fabric Lakehouse/Warehouse, Delta tables, and data engineering best practices.
• Partner closely with data engineers, data architects/modelers, Power BI specialists, and business stakeholders to define trusted data models, KPIs, semantic layers, and reporting standards.
• Establish governance standards for data quality, lineage, documentation, naming conventions, access, and metric definitions so business users can rely on consistent enterprise data.
• Lead AI and advanced analytics initiatives by ensuring the underlying data architecture is clean, well-modeled, secure, and ready for machine learning, automation, and agentic AI use cases.
• Present complex data, AI, and platform recommendations to executives with clarity, confidence, and business relevance; must demonstrate strong executive presence and the ability to influence at the senior leadership level.
• Mentor and develop technical team members while remaining close enough to the architecture to challenge assumptions, unblock execution, and raise the technical bar.
• Evaluate emerging capabilities in Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, Spark, Power BI, and AI orchestration, integrating practical innovations that support measurable business outcomes.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, or a related field; Master's or Ph.D. preferred.
• At least 7-10 years of experience across data science, data engineering, analytics, or enterprise data architecture, with a minimum of 3 years in a leadership or managerial role.
• Hands-on leadership experience with Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, Azure Data Factory, Spark/PySpark, Delta Lake, and medallion architecture.
• Proven expertise in AI orchestration methodologies and tools, with a solid understanding of model deployment, monitoring, and the data architecture required to support AI at scale.
• Strong experience with Power BI for data visualization and reporting, including knowledge of DAX and Power Query.
• Proficient in programming languages such as Python, R, or SQL, with experience in machine learning frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch).
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with a strategic mindset and a passion for turning data into insights.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and executive presence, with the ability to convey complex concepts to technical teams, business leaders, and senior executives.
• Experience in agile methodologies and project management is a plus.

Why Join Us

This is an exciting opportunity to shape the future of the organization through data-driven insights and innovative AI solutions. If you are a forward-thinking leader with a passion for data science and a commitment to excellence, we invite you to apply and become a key driver of the data strategy.