Director, Platform Development

Company Description

VERSANT (Nasdaq: VSNT) is an industry-changing media and entertainment business and home to trusted brands that shape culture, inform audiences, and build lasting connections. It operates across four core markets: political news and opinion, business news and personal finance, golf, and sports and genre entertainment. These markets are served through a powerful portfolio of iconic and innovative brands, including CNBC, MS NOW, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Versant's sports division USA Sports, along with complementary digital assets including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and GolfPass.

Job Description

Versant Media’s Data Platforms team is the central data store across the enterprise. We unify disparate systems into a secure, well-governed, real-time data environment that powers downstream products, analytics, and content delivery experiences.

We are seeking a Director, Platform Development to lead the design, buildout, and evolution of our modern data platform. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who is equally comfortable writing production code, setting architectural direction, and managing a small but growing team.
In the near term, this role will be a key individual contributor responsible for building foundational platform capabilities. Over time, the focus will shift toward people leadership, planning, and execution management as the team scales.

This role reports to the VP of Data Platforms and is expected to act as a technical and operational anchor for the organization.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of core backend services and data platform components using Node.js and TypeScript
• Establish and evolve platform architecture, design patterns, and engineering standards
• Own and triage intake requests, balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform health
• Partner closely with governance, analytics, and downstream consumers to ensure the platform supports:
  • Scalable data ingestion and access patterns
  • Lakehouse-style architectures
  • ELT pipelines
  • Metadata, lineage, and governance requirements
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines that enable safe, repeatable, and observable deployments
• Set expectations and best practices around:
  • Object-oriented design and proven design patterns
  • Test-driven development (TDD) and strong automated test coverage
  • Secure development lifecycle (SDL) principles
• Hire, mentor, and manage engineers as the team grows
• Conduct code and design reviews, providing clear technical guidance
• Collaborate effectively in a matrixed enterprise environment with both legacy systems and modern platforms
• Gradually transition from primary IC to people and execution leadership as the platform matures

Qualifications

• Deep foundation in software engineering fundamentals, including:
  • Object-oriented programming
  • Design patterns
  • API and service design
• Solid understanding of data engineering concepts, including:
  • Lakehouse architectures
  • ELT pipelines
  • Data governance, metadata, and lineage
• Experience building modular or microservice-based systems
• Demonstrated experience leading or mentoring engineers (formal people management experience preferred, but not required)
• Strong commitment to code quality, testing, and automation
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices
• Comfortable operating with a high degree of ownership in a lean, fast-moving environment
• Strong communicator who can translate between technical and non-technical stakeholders

Nice to Have

• Experience with ML platforms or services (e.g., Databricks, AWS Bedrock)
• Familiarity with analytics and BI tools (Tableau, Power BI, or similar)
• Experience working in media, streaming, or large-scale enterprise environments
• Prior experience modernizing or integrating legacy systems into cloud-native platforms

Additional Requirements: 

• Fully Remote: This position has been designated as fully remote, meaning that the position is expected to contribute from a non-Versant worksite, most commonly an employee’s residence. 

This position is eligible for company sponsored benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), paid leave, tuition reimbursement, and a variety of other discounts and perks. Learn more about the benefits offered by NBCUniversal by visiting the Benefits page of the Careers website. Salary range: $170,000 - $210,000 (bonus and long-term incentive eligible) 

We are accepting applications for this position on an ongoing basis. 

Additional Information

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in-person interview with a VERSANT Media employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision. VERSANT Media's policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

For LA County and City Residents Only: VERSANT Media will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories, or arrest or conviction records, in a manner consistent with relevant legal requirements, including the City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, where applicable.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require support throughout the application and/or recruitment process as a result of your disability, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. You can submit your request to candidateaccessibility@versantmedia.com.

VERSANT Media is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. We include a good faith pay range for each position to comply with applicable state and local pay transparency laws and to promote equity across our organization. Actual compensation will be based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, experience, and location and may include additional forms of compensation and benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, etc.

VERSANT Media is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at VERSANT via-email, the Internet, or in any form and/or method without a valid written Statement of Work in place for this position from VERSANT's Talent Acquisition team will be deemed the sole property of VERSANT. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by VERSANT as a result of the referral or through other means.