Director of Data Science & Engineering

Role Description

ActBlue is seeking a Director to lead our Data Science & Engineering department in order to foster a data-centric culture through building teams, infrastructure, systems, and services that facilitate organizational insights and power data-driven product experiences.

The Data Science & Engineering department encompasses ActBlue’s entire data function - from providing data analytics and reporting services to building and maintaining our data warehouse and ETL infrastructure. The Data Science & Engineering department is central to ActBlue’s ability to turn our data into a critical advantage for Democratic and progressive grassroots fundraising.

• Collaborate with leaders across the organization to develop and execute on a data strategy in line with ActBlue's near and long-term goals, including supporting organizational growth through acquisitions and partnerships.
• Foster a data-centric culture by upleveling our ability to make data-informed decisions and build best-in-class data products that meet rigorous performance and reliability standards.
• Enable and advocate for AI/ML driven products and features across the ActBlue Platform through building scalable machine learning infrastructure that serves production environments and identifying new opportunities to deploy data science and analytics capacity in service of our mission.
• Oversee our Data Science, Data Analytics, Data Engineering, and Data Platform teams in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment.
• Guide the evolution of our data systems, tools, and architecture to meet the organization's needs, including data consolidation, governance frameworks, and unified data models across multiple entities.
• Ensure high-quality communication and a stakeholder-centric approach between our data teams and their internal customers, with an emphasis on responsiveness and partnership during high-stakes moments.

Qualifications

• 8+ years or equivalent in successfully managing and leading Data teams.
• 2+ years of leading Data organizations of size 20 or more.
• Expertise in the use of data science in strategic and operational decision-making.
• Expertise in statistics and quantitative analysis.
• Expertise in data security and compliance.
• Strong familiarity with Data Engineering, Data platforms, and tools for high-performance big data infrastructure.
• Experience building production-grade ML/AI systems, including feature engineering pipelines, model deployment, and performance monitoring.
• Track record of driving technical excellence and pushing engineering teams to deliver at a higher level.
• Effective cross-functional collaborator who can effectively partner across business functions to understand needs, manage expectations, and oversee joint projects in dynamic, sometimes ambiguous environments.
• Outstanding stakeholder orientation with a strong desire to be of service, particularly during critical deadlines and organizational complexity.
• Ability to navigate multi-stakeholder environments and build alignment across different organizational structures.
• Experience leading data integration efforts through mergers and acquisitions, including building centralized data lakes, harmonizing data models across disparate systems, and establishing unified governance frameworks.

Requirements

• Background or experience in electoral politics and/or the political technology space, including familiarity with campaign cycles, compliance requirements, and deadline-driven delivery.
• Previous experience in payments, b2b, and/or two-sided marketplaces.
• Background in analytics and reporting.
• Experience managing data integration projects across organizations or through M&A activity.
• Familiarity with Redshift, AWS, dbt, Looker, and Fivetran.
• Experience managing in an organized labor environment or demonstrated ability to quickly learn and navigate collective bargaining frameworks.
• Product management skills: conceiving and evaluating concepts for new data products based on understanding of market and user needs.
• Tactical product management: leading a team in the design and implementation of new data products.
• Experience establishing data governance standards, SLA frameworks, and operational excellence practices.

Benefits

• Flexible work schedules and an unlimited time-off policy.
• Fully paid and trans-inclusive health, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their families; plus fully-paid health reimbursement arrangement to use for out-of-pocket expenses and fully-paid short- and long-term disability.
• Fully paid basic and AD&D life insurance and a voluntary supplemental life insurance option.
• Dependent and health care flexible spending account options.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) benefits for employees.
• Automatic 2% Employer-paid 401K contribution, plus up to an additional 6% match on employee contributions.
• A minimum of three months paid medical, family and parental leave (for all new parents, adoptions included).
• Commuter or home-office benefits, including a $1,000 home-office setup allowance for all new full-time remote employees.
• Additional perks including quarterly snack deliveries and digital subscriptions to the Boston Globe & New York Times.