Director - Data & AI Engineering

About Ascendion

Ascendion is a full-service digital engineering solutions company. We make and manage software platforms and products that power growth and deliver captivating experiences to consumers and employees. Our engineering, cloud, data, experience design, and talent solution capabilities accelerate transformation and impact for enterprise clients. Headquartered in New Jersey, our workforce of 6,000+ Ascenders delivers solutions from around the globe. Ascendion is built differently to engineer the next.

Ascendion | Engineering to elevate life

We have a culture built on opportunity, inclusion, and a spirit of partnership. Come, change the world with us:

• Build the coolest tech for the world’s leading brands
• Solve complex problems - and learn new skills
• Experience the power of transforming digital engineering for Fortune 500 clients
• Master your craft with leading training programs and hands-on experience

Experience a community of change makers!

Join a culture of high-performing innovators with endless ideas and a passion for tech. Our culture is the fabric of our company, and it is what makes us unique and diverse. The way we share ideas, learning, experiences, successes, and joy allows everyone to be their best at Ascendion.

About the Role

We are seeking a Director – Data & AI Engineering to lead the strategy, architecture, engineering, and delivery of modern data and AI platforms for enterprise customers. This is a senior technology leadership role requiring a strong combination of data engineering, cloud, AI/ML, industry domain expertise, customer engagement, and executive presence. The ideal candidate will have deep experience in Healthcare and Life science domain, along with hands-on leadership experience across modern cloud data platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, or MS Fabric, and AWS, Azure, or GCP.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead executive discovery with CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, analytics, data, product, and business leaders to understand strategic priorities and challenges.
• Define enterprise Data, Analytics & AI strategies, including maturity assessments, target states, transformation roadmaps, and investment priorities.
• Identify and architect AI-driven solutions using data, analytics, ML, GenAI, and Agentic AI to deliver measurable business and healthcare outcomes.
• Design modern, AI-ready data architectures across Databricks, Snowflake, Microsoft Fabric, and major cloud platforms, with governance, security, privacy, quality, and lineage built in.
• Drive legacy modernization, solutioning, RFPs, proposals, proofs of value, and strategic pursuits while ensuring alignment from architecture through delivery.
• Develop reusable healthcare architectures and accelerators while mentoring globally distributed architecture and engineering teams.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience across data, analytics, architecture, consulting, or related disciplines.
• Significant experience within healthcare and/or life sciences, with the ability to engage credibly with both business and technology stakeholders.
• Deep domain expertise in Healthcare or Life Sciences is mandatory, with a strong understanding of industry-specific workflows, challenges, and regulatory requirements.
• Demonstrated experience defining enterprise data strategies, target-state architectures, and multi-year transformation roadmaps.
• Strong knowledge of modern cloud data platforms, data engineering, analytics, data modeling, and data management.
• Experience with at least one major ecosystem such as Azure, AWS, or GCP, plus strong familiarity with platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, or Microsoft Fabric.
• Strong understanding of data governance, lineage, metadata, data quality, privacy, security, and observability.
• Practical knowledge of AI/ML, GenAI, and emerging Agentic AI architectures and how they apply in regulated environments.
• Experience conducting discovery workshops and translating ambiguous business requirements into structured, actionable solutions.

Salary and Other Compensation: The annual salary for this position is between $180,000 - $250,000 annually. Factors that may affect pay within this range may include geography/market, skills, education, experience, and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

Benefits: The company offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements: (medical insurance), (dental insurance), (vision insurance), (401(k) retirement plan), (long-term disability insurance), (short-term disability insurance) (5 personal days accrued each calendar year). The paid time off benefits meet the paid sick and safe time laws that pertain to the city/state. (10-15 days of paid vacation time) (6 paid holidays and 1 floating holiday per calendar year)

Want to change the world? Let us know.

Tell us about your experiences, education, and ambitions. Bring your knowledge, unique viewpoint, and creativity to the table. Let’s talk!