Director, Data Platform

Credit Acceptance is proud to be an award-winning company recognized both locally and nationally across multiple workplace categories. Our world-class culture is shaped by dedicated team members who are driven to succeed as professionals individually and together as a team. Backed by a strong product, exceptional people, and a stable financial foundation, we’ve grown into a leading provider of used and new car financing across the country.

Our Engineering and Analytics Team Members utilize the latest technology to develop, monitor, and maintain complex practices that help optimize our success. Our Team Members value being challenged, are encouraged to express their ideas, and have the flexibility to enjoy work life balance. We build intrinsic value by partnering with all functions of our business to support their success and make strategic business decisions. We focus on professional development and continuous improvement while enjoying a casual work environment and Great Place to Work culture!

We're seeking a Director of Data Platform to provide technical and architectural leadership within the data engineering organization. In this role, you'll champion to build out modern data platform cross the data space that is critical to enable business growth with AI at scale at Credit Acceptance. As a director, you'll be responsible for leading the technical vision, strategy, architecture, and execution of modern data platform, collaborating both within the data team and outside to ensure successful deliveries in production, representing the data team in various technical forums across engineering to contribute the success at the ecosystem level. The ideal candidate brings 15+ years of engineering experience with significant depth in data technology, cloud, and AI. You'll serve as both a hands-on technical leader and a strategic advisor, helping to establish robust, scalable foundations that enable innovation across the organization.

Outcomes and Activities:

• This position will work from home; occasional planned travel to an assigned Southfield, Michigan office location may be required. However, this position is permitted to work at a Southfield, Michigan office location if requested by the team member.
• Develop and drive the long-term vision for enterprise data platforms and architecture, ensuring alignment with business growth and AI success
• Formulate and implement data platform strategy across the data space including but not limited to big data, real time, transaction/operational, governance, that transform the way how we work with data in the era of AI
• Oversee the architecture, design and development of scalable data platform that enable self-serve success with various use cases across the company by taking a platform and AI first approach
• Ensure solid production success that meets business need and speed, establish strong finops discipline with timely and insightful info to continuously optimize our economics including forecast, runtime and “showback” to the business
• Effectively communicate data technologies, strategies, roadmap and progress to executive leadership and stakeholders, ensuring alignment with the firm’s broader vision and goals.
• Stay ahead of industry trends and emerging technologies, translating them into actionable initiatives to drive innovation and maintain the firm’s market leadership.
• Build strong engineering organization and foster solid engineering discipline by leading with examples and mentoring team members
• Collaborate both with the data team and cross engineering on technology and architecture strategy and decision
• Exemplify technical innovation and contribute to critical system design, implementation and operation success
• Formulate technology and architecture decision framework that embeds engineering discipline
• Become an expert in the business process domain to better support the business and align technologies with the business outcomes
• Work with the engineering leadership team to develop and execute on the company’s technical and business strategy
• Conduct impact analysis to proactively identify impact of a change across multiple applications/systems
• Perform technical due diligence and architectural assessments of third-party technologies and solutions.
• Experiment and test ideas, validate assumptions against needs, reach conclusions and recommend solutions
• Document standards, best practices, and engineering artifacts so others can easily understand, build and maintain best in class software systems
• Debug the critical problems which arise in production and execute effective solutions within the application and across multiple applications/systems
• Lead continuous learning and process improvement activities to improve design and overall engineering practices
• Grow talent by participating in hiring and mentoring team members

Competencies: The following items detail how you will be successful in this role.

• Customer Empathy: Customer Empathy is the ability to understand the perspectives, pain points, and experiences of customers. It involves actively putting oneself in the customer’s shoes, comprehending their needs and challenges, and using that understanding to provide a better, more customer-centric experience.
• Engineering Excellence: Engineering Excellence is about bringing great craftsmanship and thought leadership to deliver an outstanding product that delights customers and solves for the business. This involves the pursuit and achievement of high standards, best practices, innovation, and superior solutions.
• One Team: A One Team mindset refers to a collaborative approach across the organization, where individuals work together seamlessly, without boundaries, as a single, cohesive team. Shared goals, open communication and mutual support create a sense of collective purpose. This enables teams to navigate challenges and pursue shared objectives more effectively.
• Owner’s Mindset: Owner’s Mindset involves adopting a set of behaviors that reflect a sense of responsibility, accountability, strategic thinking, and a proactive approach to managing your domain. As an owner, you understand the business and your domain(s) deeply and solve for the right outcome for the domain(s) and the business.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or closely related field of study; or equivalent work experience
• Minimum 10 years of software engineering experience or comparable depth of experience
• Experience in the leadership role overseeing technical direction of data platform, technology and architecture
• Expert knowledge of software engineering best practices with experience building modern data platform, product and solutions, especially in enabling AI success
• Expert understanding and use of modern data technology end 2 end including but not limited to source system, data integration, data acquisition, data ingestion, data transformation, data aggregation, data governance, business intelligence, data warehouse, data lake, NoSQL, object storage, streaming etc.
• Extensive experience with building and driving adoption of software engineering best practices
• Strong understanding of AI, distributed systems, cloud computing, and microservices architectures
• Demonstrated success in building strong engineering organization and attract/recruit/grow/retain talents
• Demonstrated success in building mission-critical enterprise class data platform that delivers business impact
• Demonstrated ability to work with business partners, cross functional team members and coach and mentor experienced team members
• In-depth experience with building big data real time production system that delivers business success
• Experienced in communicating and articulating technology subjects in the context of business and providing timely and clear communication
• Well versed in delivery mechanisms such as Agile

Preferred:

• Financial services or FinTech industry experience

Knowledge and Skills:

• Architecture and Design: Ability to implement world class solutions that meet the needs of the business and customer, and help deliver growth and innovation.
• Leadership: Be a thought leader and demonstrate leadership to mentor team members, influence change and drive for the business outcome
• Ability to challenge the status quo and influence stakeholders to create innovative solutions
• Be collaborative with other team members, seeking a diversity of thought to meet business outcomes
• Ability to foster strong relationships across the organization
• Bring a strong understanding of relevant and emerging technologies, provide input and coach team members and embed learning and innovation in the day-to-day
• Strong experience and understanding of how to connect the work being done and how it drives business value
• Ability to communicate complex technical information (both verbal and written) to all levels, including senior leadership
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.

Target Compensation: A competitive base salary range from $208,761 – $347,935. This position is eligible for an annual variable bonus of cash and equity, between 20-60%. Bonus amounts are based on individual performance. Final compensation within the range is influenced by many factors including role-specific skills, depth and experience level, industry background, relevant education and certifications.

Candidates who reside in the following major metropolitan areas may be eligible for a premium on top of the posted range based on their specific zone: San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego.

INDENGLP

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Benefits

• Excellent benefits package that includes 401(K) match, adoption assistance, parental leave, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive medical/ dental/vision and many nonstandard benefits that make us a Great Place to Work

Our Company Values:

To be successful in this role, Team Members need to be:

• Positive by maintaining resiliency and focusing on solutions
• Respectful by collaborating and actively listening
• Insightful by cultivating innovation, accumulating business and role specific knowledge, demonstrating self-awareness and making quality decisions
• Direct by effectively communicating and conveying courage
• Earnest by taking accountability, applying feedback and effectively planning and priority setting

To create an environment where people do their best work, we focus on the dimensions of Organizational Health. All leaders must:

• Identify the Right People by recognizing top talent
• Set Clear Expectations by managing change and directing others
• Train team members and focus on developing talent
• Performance Manage by ensuring accountability and driving results
• Create the Right Environment by establishing trust and managing conflict
• Maintain the Right Number of team members needed to build an effective team

Expectations:

• Remain compliant with our policies processes and legal guidelines
• All other duties as assigned
• Attendance as required by department

Advice!

We understand that your career search may look different than others. Our hiring team wants to make sure that this would be a fit not just for us, but for you long term. If you are actively looking or starting to explore new opportunities, send us your application!

P.S.

We have great details around our stats, success, history and more. We’re proud of our culture and are happy to share why – let’s talk!

Required degrees must have been earned at institutions of Higher Education which are accredited by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or equivalent.

Credit Acceptance is dedicated to providing a safe and inclusive working environment for all. As part of our Culture of Compliance, we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and value our culturally diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of the person’s age, race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status, criminal history, or any other legally protected characteristic.

California Residents: Please click here for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) notice regarding the personal information Credit Acceptance may collect from you.

Play the video below to learn more about our Company culture.

Originally posted on Himalayas