Director Technology - Data Platforms

About the Role

Simple Machines is seeking a senior data technology leader to join its Global Data Practice leadership team in Sydney. This role is pivotal in shaping the future trajectory of their data platform capabilities for the ANZ region. It demands a visionary engineering leader who is equally adept at executive-level strategy, architectural design, commercial insight, and practical delivery. The individual will drive modernization of enterprise data ecosystems to align with an AI-native future.

Key Responsibilities

• Contribute as a member of the Global Data Practice leadership team.
• Develop and refine Simple Machines’ strategic positioning, propositions, and technical roadmap for data platforms.
• Advise enterprise clients on strategies involving modern data platform architectures, operating models, and AI preparedness.
• Guide organizations transitioning from traditional centralized data platforms to AI-native, real-time, and data product-oriented models.
• Collaborate with engagement managers and senior leadership on significant strategic projects.
• Lead architectural decisions and technical direction for complex enterprise data platform transformation initiatives.
• Serve as a senior technical counterpart during major client engagements and maintain strategic partner relationships.
• Participate in pre-sales activities, proposal development, solution design, and executive stakeholder communication.
• Foster trusted relationships with technology partners and track emerging platform innovations and market dynamics.
• Support recruitment, mentoring, capability growth, and practice development within the engineering team.
• Oversee major client projects related to data engineering, platform modernization, AI enablement, and operational data frameworks.
• Contribute to thought leadership efforts, market positioning, and growth drivers across ANZ.

Prerequisites

• At least 10 years of experience in hands-on data engineering, data platforms, analytics engineering, or data architecture.
• Demonstrated consultancy experience with enterprise clients, with strong client-facing skills.
• Proven track record in pre-sales, proposal creation, and technical solution shaping.
• Experience in architecting and implementing scalable, cloud-native data platforms at enterprise scale.
• Expertise in designing data products and reusable enterprise data capabilities.
• Comprehensive understanding of data mesh principles, federated governance models, and domain-oriented data ownership.
• Proficiency in designing platforms that support AI-native applications, machine learning workflows, agentic automation, and intelligent systems.
• Strong knowledge of real-time, event-driven architectures, streaming data systems, and low-latency processing approaches.
• Experience enabling governed, discoverable, reusable, and operationalized data products in large organizations.
• Familiarity with modern data stack technologies and contemporary engineering methodologies.
• Deep grasp of platform architecture, distributed data systems, orchestration tools, governance, and scalable data product frameworks.
• Hands-on experience with technologies like Google Cloud Platform, AWS, Azure, Databricks, Snowflake, Kafka, Spark, dbt, Kubernetes, Airflow, and AI/ML enablement tools or comparable platforms.
• Strong commercial sense and ability to engage effectively with senior business and technical stakeholders.
• Leadership experience driving large-scale enterprise programs and managing high-performance engineering teams.
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced consulting environment.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal professional will merge deep technical expertise with strategic commercial insight. This position goes beyond pure delivery management or architecture; it requires clear perspectives on the future of enterprise data platforms, evolving operating models, and the intersection of data engineering with AI enablement. Candidates should excel across executive dialogues, architectural design sessions, proposal development, mentoring, and guiding clients through complex transformations.

About Simple Machines

Simple Machines is a global, independent technology consultancy with offices in Sydney, New Zealand, London, Poland, and San Francisco. They specialize in designing and building modern data platforms, intelligent systems, and bespoke software blending data engineering, software engineering, and AI. Their mission is to help enterprises, scale-ups, and government entities transform complex data into valuable products, platforms, and decisions that make a meaningful impact. Their approach is highly bespoke—focusing on solutions that truly matter, encapsulated by their tagline: "We engineer data to life™."