Director, Platform Architecture

Role Overview

• Define and scale Deckers’ modern data and analytics platform architecture, ensuring it is secure, scalable, governed, and optimized for performance and cost.
• Establish foundational architectural frameworks, technology standards, and best practices for our cloud-native platform, with AWS as the core environment.
• Collaborate with data architects, platform and DevOps engineering teams, product leaders, and governance specialists.
• Support the development of the enterprise data platform strategy aligned with business objectives and digital transformation initiatives.
• Define and maintain the architectural blueprint and reference architecture for the cloud-native data platform using AWS as the core environment.
• Establish principles and patterns for platform scalability, reliability, security, observability, and cost optimization across platform services and shared capabilities.
• Design and maintain standards for platform architecture layers including infrastructure, networking, identity and access management, audit logging, metadata management, access control, and observability.
• Partner with domain architects and engineering teams to ensure shared platform services are reusable, modular, and governed, and that domain teams can self-serve effectively.
• Guide the adoption of platform services and tools that enable data mesh, pub-sub models, event-driven architectures, and self-serve data product delivery.
• Lead evaluation and selection of core platform technologies and services, ensuring they meet business needs for analytics, real-time streaming, governance, and machine learning enablement.
• Promote architectural patterns that enable resilience, scalability, cost efficiency, and rapid delivery, including standards for automation, environment management, and operational readiness.
• Partner with Data Governance, Security, and Compliance teams to embed privacy, security, and audit-readiness into platform architecture and delivery practices.
• Define standards for metadata capture, lineage tracking, data quality measurement, and access management across platform services and tooling.
• Provide architectural leadership and mentorship to platform engineers, DevOps teams, and data engineering teams, including design reviews and technical guidance.
• Collaborate with Program Delivery, Product Management, and architecture peers to align roadmaps, sequencing, and execution plans across multiple teams.
• Influence platform design decisions across the organization and drive alignment to enterprise goals through standards, reference implementations, and review processes.
• Support vendor evaluations, licensing decisions, and long-term technology investments for the platform ecosystem, including total cost of ownership considerations.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field
• Master’s degree preferred
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional or equivalent certifications are highly preferred
• 10 to 15 years of experience in platform architecture, data architecture, or enterprise systems design
• 5 or more years of leadership experience building or scaling cloud-native data platforms, ideally on AWS
• Experience supporting modern data architectures including lakehouse models, real-time streaming, and domain-oriented data products
• Experience in the retail, consumer products, or e-commerce industry is preferred but not required
• Deep expertise in AWS cloud services related to data storage, compute, networking, security, and auditability, including services such as S3, Redshift, Glue, Lake Formation, EMR, Kinesis, IAM, VPC, and CloudTrail
• Knowledge of distributed computing frameworks, modern file formats and open table standards including Parquet and Iceberg
• Familiarity with governance, cataloging, lineage, and privacy frameworks and regulations including GDPR and CCPA
• Deep understanding of modern cloud-native architecture, distributed systems, and data platform technologies
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to work cross-functionally and influence without direct authority
• Excellent problem-solving and decision-making abilities in complex, fast-paced environments
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences
• Ability to foster innovation, drive continuous improvement, and create scalable technical frameworks
• Comfortable working in a global, matrixed organization with a proactive, results-driven approach.

Tech Stack

• Amazon Redshift
• AWS
• Cloud
• Distributed Systems

Benefits

• Competitive Pay and Bonuses
• Financial Planning and wellbeing
• Time away from work
• Extras, discounts and perks
• Growth and Development
• Health and Wellness