Director of Data

The posting, as Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies wrote it

ABOUT US

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders with a clear vision for automotive’s next chapter. From operating systems to zonal controllers to cloud and connectivity solutions, we’re addressing the challenges of electric vehicles through technology that will set the standards for software-defined vehicles around the world.

The road to the future is uncharted. By combining our expertise across connectivity, AI, security and more, we’ll map a new way forward. Working together, we’ll create a future that’s more connected, more intelligent, more sustainable for everyone.

ROLE SUMMARY

We are looking for a Director of Data to own our data strategy and platform as we scale toward software-defined vehicles.

This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll set technical direction and stay close to the architecture and code, while building and managing a high-performing team responsible for high-volume, high-velocity vehicle and enterprise data.

You'll bring both the technical depth to make sound platform decisions and the people leadership to grow and run a team operating at scale.

We're hiring for this role in Palo Alto, Irvine, or Vancouver. We are happy to work with whichever location suits you best.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Define and drive the data strategy and roadmap across vehicle telemetry, manufacturing, and enterprise data domains, aligning with engineering, product, and business stakeholders.
• Own architecture decisions for large-scale data platforms (ingestion, storage, processing, and serving layers) handling high-volume streaming and batch data.
• Stay hands-on: review designs and code, dive into pipeline or performance issues, and set technical standards by example, not just by policy.
• Recruit, manage, mentor, and grow a team of data engineers and analytics professionals; own hiring plans, performance management, and career development.
• Partner with quality, manufacturing, product, and software engineering teams to ensure data infrastructure supports reliability, safety, and product analytics needs.
• Establish data governance, quality, and security standards across pipelines and platforms, ensuring compliance with relevant regulatory and privacy requirements.
• Build and maintain stakeholder-facing reporting on platform health, data quality, and delivery against roadmap commitments.
• Evaluate and integrate modern tooling (e.g., Databricks, Spark, Kafka, cloud data warehouses, AI/LLM-assisted engineering tools) to keep the platform and team ahead of scale demands.
• Manage budget, vendor, and tooling decisions for the data organization.

QUALIFICATIONS

Minimum Qualifications

• 8–10 years of overall industry experience in data engineering or analytics, including 3+ years managing high-volume data engineering or analytics teams.
• Demonstrated hands-on technical depth in building and operating large-scale data systems, proficiency in SQL and

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Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies affiliates; and (iii) Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies’ service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.

If you provide a mobile telephone number as part of your application or during the recruitment process, Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies may use that number to contact you via SMS text message for recruitment-related purposes, including scheduling, logistics, and status updates. Message and data rates may apply. You may opt out of SMS communications at any time by replying STOP to any text message you receive from us. Consent to receive SMS messages is not a condition of applying for or being considered for employment.

Please see our Candidate Data Privacy Notice (English) https://assets.ctfassets.net/2md5qhoeajym/53otRWdzXPzSdWPgiel5T/07c61b0eed2d91f2f403f788fd20d315/RVTech_Candidate_Data_Privacy_Notice_-_Nov_2024.pdf and Candidate Data Privacy Notice (Serbian) https://assets.ctfassets.net/2md5qhoeajym/40xUZMehbGToclkLqWXW0E/eb5b553bd8af7c607066253fbb227bda/RVTech_Candidate_Data_Privacy_Notice_-_Nov_2024_Serbian.pdf for more information.

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Please note this job posting represents an open, active vacancy. Additionally, we are not currently accepting applications from third party application services.