VP, Data

Job Overview

We are looking for a VP of Data to elevate how we make data-driven decisions across the company. This leadership role will report to the SVP of Engineering and will be responsible for architecting systems, standards, and teams that transform fragmented signals into trusted, decision-enabling intelligence. The position directly impacts growth, margin, risk mitigation, and executive velocity by building the canonical data engine that powers a complex B2B2C marketplace.

Success Metrics

• Stakeholders trust the numbers—even when they are uncomfortable
• Revenue questions that once took weeks now take hours or minutes
• Leading indicators surface risk before it hits the P&L
• KPIs are clearly defined, role-aware, and consistently interpreted
• Data enables faster, smarter decision-making across the company
• External data anomalies are identified immediately, rather than weeks later
• Clearly defined schema, data usage rules, and organizational understanding in financial and product contexts
• Data can be consumed by humans and AI models with correct semantic boundaries

Key Responsibilities

• Data Strategy & Architecture – Own the long-term data strategy in partnership with Engineering, Finance, Product, and Executive Leadership. Define and evolve the end-to-end data architecture across acquisition, transactions, fulfillment, revenue recognition, and lifecycle events. Design scalable, auditable systems that accurately model complex, multi-role KPIs while balancing speed, accuracy, and cost.
  • Current stack includes Snowflake, Looker, Python, Postgres, and SQL Server.
• Revenue & Risk Intelligence – Build data systems that model affiliate revenue-share agreements, confirmations, cancellations, and adjustments. Enable early detection of fraud and performance anomalies before they materially impact margin. Partner with Finance and cross‑functional leaders to establish canonical revenue metrics and shared KPI definitions.
• Time-to-Insight – Reduce the latency between business events and actionable insight. Enable faster experimentation, channel optimization, and partner performance analysis through reliable pipelines and tooling that support both real‑time visibility and deep historical analysis.
• Leadership & Team Management – Build and scale a high-performing data engineering organization grounded in technical excellence, data quality, and operational rigor. Foster a collaborative, high‑ownership culture that empowers teams to do their best work, operate effectively in ambiguity, and deliver durable systems that accelerate business impact.
• Cross-Functional Influence – Translate business ambiguity into technical clarity and technical complexity into business understanding. Clearly articulate data definitions, tradeoffs, and system constraints. Serve as a trusted partner to Product, Engineering, Finance, and Executive Leadership in driving high‑impact decisions.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in data engineering or data platform leadership, including prior VP / Head of Data Engineering scope (or equivalent)
• Proven ownership of data systems directly tied to revenue, billing, or financial outcomes
• Deep expertise in modern data architectures (batch + streaming, warehouses, orchestration, modeling)
• Comfortable doing vendor evaluations, build‑vs‑buy decisions, and successfully implementing infrastructure projects
• Strong command of data quality, lineage, observability, and governance with pragmatic execution
• Experience stewarding data lifecycle with ML models, both traditional supervised learning and LLM-based models
• Experience designing systems that accommodate ambiguity, delayed signals, and evolving business rules
• Ability to drive clarity and alignment where metrics are contested and incentives may compete
• Strong understanding of attribution, leading vs. lagging indicators, and decision‑enabling data principles
• Clear judgment that timely, decision‑enabling truth is more valuable than theoretical perfection
• Experience in affiliate marketing, marketplaces, fintech, adtech, or other revenue‑complex environments is strongly preferred

Compensation

This posting is anticipated to remain open until 6/15/2026. The new hire salary range for this position is $275,000 - $310,000 annually. Factors that may affect the starting pay within this range include skills, experience, and other qualifications aligned with Updater's internal leveling guidelines.

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Flexible PTO
• 13 paid company holidays annually
• Updater Stock Options
• 401(k) with employer match
• Wellbeing Subsidy
• One Medical membership
• Virtual on-demand healthcare through Teladoc and Talkspace
• Flexible spending account (FSA)
• Health savings account (HSA)
• Supplemental Short & Long Term Disability Insurance
• Supplemental Life Insurance
• Paid Parental Leave

Equal Opportunity Employment

Updater is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and will consider all qualified applicants regardless of color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or family status, disability, gender identity or expression, veteran status, actual or presumed belonging to an ethnic group, or any other legally protected status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.