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Senior Director, Data Platform Engineering

Lila Sciences· Software
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Hybrid (San Francisco, CA)$260k - $390kfull-timePosted 6mo ago

About the role

Engineering leader responsible for owning and scaling Lila's data platform and infrastructure end-to-end, including architecture, delivery, reliability, and developer/scientist experience for data ingestion, storage, processing, and interaction across analytical and ML workloads.

Responsibilities

  • Build, mentor, and manage a high-performing team of 30-40 data engineering experts; adopt modern data infrastructure (real-time streaming, columnar engines, lake house, cloud-native storage); drive performance, collaboration, and professional growth; manage workload and ensure timely delivery of high-quality solutions.
  • Define and execute the technical roadmap for the data platform; drive innovation in data lakehouse and data serving ecosystem; ensure reliability, availability, and security; collaborate with other engineering teams to integrate data processing technologies with Lila systems.
  • Partner with data scientists, data engineers, lab scientists, product managers, and stakeholders to understand data processing needs; communicate complex concepts to technical and non-technical audiences; advocate for best practices; align across teams.
  • Represent Lila’s data platform work at external conferences; deliver presentations and write blog posts highlighting leadership in big data processing.
  • Drive innovative, agentic, and low-code solutions to deliver data interfaces for exploration, query, analytics, and ML/inference at scale.

Qualifications

  • 12+ years of software development experience with a focus on data processing at scale
  • 5+ years of experience leading senior engineers
  • Experience with AWS/GCP primitives (S3 + Athena/BigQuery) and query engines
  • Operated data platforms at petabyte scale with sub-second query latency
  • Experience managing data infrastructure supporting 100+ concurrent ML training and inference workloads
  • Familiarity with LLM/AI-native data patterns (vector stores, embedding pipelines, pre/mid/post training)
  • Track record building data platforms in high-growth or early-stage environments emphasizing speed-to-value
  • Hands-on coding in Python and modern backend frameworks; experience with infrastructure-as-code and Kubernetes
  • BS, MS, or Ph.D. in Computer Science or related field

Skills

Required:Data platform leadershipPythonAWS/GCP data primitives

Benefits

  • Competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity
  • Full-time U.S. benefits: medical, dental, vision; employer-paid life and disability; flexible time off; holidays; parental leave; educational assistance; commuter benefits; lunch program
Last updated Oct 21, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Lila Sciences

Pioneering Scientific Superintelligence

Pioneering Scientific Superintelligence to solve humankind’s greatest challenges.

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