Director of Data Engineering & Platform

About this role

Director of Data Engineering & Platform Cooley is seeking a Director of Data Engineering & Platform to join the Data team within the Innovation department.

Position summary: As a leading technology law firm, Cooley is determined to become a leader in the digital practice of law. The Director of Data Engineering & Platform is a leadership role responsible for building, leading, and operating the Data Engineering & Platform function across Data Engineering and Platform & Operations. This role joins the Northstar Lakehouse program at a critical build phase, inheriting a live platform that is actively moving data into the Silver layer, with core Data Vault 2.0 structures being established across the firm's primary legal sector entities. The Director will develop high-performing Data Engineering and Platform Operations teams that deliver the Northstar Lakehouse from Silver layer foundations to gold layer products serving the firm’s AI and analytics ambitions. The platform is built on Databricks on AWS with a medallion architecture, Data Vault 2.0 methodology for non-financial data domains, and a two-track gold layer serving both legal intelligence and financial reporting consumption patterns. This is a hands-on leadership role that will build a greenfield data platform moving quickly, building correctly, and delivering at the pace a legal AI program demands. Specific duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

Position responsibilities: Data Engineering & Platform Leadership: • Lead and develop the Innovation Data Engineering & Platform function across Data Engineering and Platform & Operations. Build a high-performing, accountable team through clear expectations, consistent feedback • Provide direct leadership to the team and as the function matures and team members develop, make deliberate decisions regarding introducing a management layer beneath the Director • Direct contract resources including transitional Enterprise Solution Architects and Contractor program resources, setting clear work agendas, managing delivery accountability, and making recommendations on resource extension or transition based on platform needs and team capability development • Partner with the Director of Data on function strategy, hiring sequencing, budget, and the long-term capability roadmap for the Data Engineering & Platform function as the Northstar Lakehouse transitions from build phase to operational maturity • Develop the Senior Data Engineering Manager as the technical engineering leader this function needs over time. Provide direct, frequent feedback on delivery quality, team management, and technical decision-making • Own workforce planning for the function, including permanent hire sequencing, contractor-to-permanent conversion decisions, and the right-sizing of the team as the platform moves from construction to steady-state operations • Serve as direct supervisor and mentor to direct reports • Provide day-to-day supervision of direct reports, ensure compliance with assigned work hours and monitor for compliance with all firm and department policies. Manage staffing coverage, review and process time logs/time off requests • Support business professional development and continued educational opportunities • In collaboration with immediate supervisor and central HR, participate in hiring, performance appraisals, counseling, termination and other employee lifecycle events

Northstar Lakehouse Build & Technical Delivery: • Own the technical delivery of the Northstar Lakehouse build across the Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers of the Databricks medallion architecture. Drive reliable, high-quality data pipeline delivery across Data Vault 2.0 structures for non-financial legal sector domains and 3NF relational structures for the 3E financial and billing data domain • Establish and maintain the two-track gold layer architecture: a Data Vault Business Vault consumption layer serving legal intelligence, client and matter analytics, competitive intelligence, and AI-powered legal products, and a 3NF relational reporting layer serving financial reporting, billing analytics, and operational dashboards from the 3E legal billing and matter management system • Ensure the Data Engineering team implements Data Vault 2.0 pipelines in alignment with the methodology standards defined by the Principal Data Architect in the Platform Governance & Quality function. Create the conditions for the Principal Data Architect to provide effective methodology oversight, code review, and standards enforcement without friction • Drive the Bronze layer ingestion quality baseline, ensuring source-to-platform data completeness, reconciliation back to source systems, and structural validation are established across all active data sources before Silver layer certification is approved • Own the delivery cadence of the Data Engineering function within the squad-based EPIC delivery model. Ensure Agile ceremonies are effective, sprint commitments are realistic and met, and the engineering team is unblocked and productive across active Data Domain Squads • Partner with the Director of Data Platform Governance & Quality on the certification workflow for Bronze and Silver layer data assets, ensuring data quality gates, governance controls, and access policies are embedded in the engineering build process rather than applied as post-delivery audits

Platform Architecture & Operations: • Own the Databricks platform architecture decisions for the Northstar Lakehouse, including Unity Catalog metastore configuration, compute tier design, job cluster and SQL warehouse architecture, Delta Lake table property standards, workspace organization, and platform security configuration • Direct the Platform Architect in maintaining and evolving the Databricks platform as capabilities change, new Databricks features become available, and the platform's consumption patterns grow. Ensure the platform architecture stays current, perf

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