Engineering Director (Data & ML)

Who we're looking for

We are looking for a Director, Data & ML Engineering to join our team of Data, Analytics and ML Engineers to transform our infrastructure, tools, platforms whilst building a culture that enables business value and growth.

The ideal candidate knows how to take vague problems and identify concrete solutions, can tie abstract concepts to business issues, and can convert technical debt into strategic opportunities. You will work closely with leaders across Product, Analytics, Commercial, and Marketing to support and implement high-quality, data-driven decisions.

You'll build on your previous experiences of establishing and building strategy to enable the next phase of our transformation. You'll be able to help us build scalable, reliable infrastructure and data architecture, scale up our alerting and observability frameworks, and establish business processes to prevent quality issues.

You will understand how data is improving the efficiency of everyone in the business to make more informed decisions. How data is re-shaping the interactions brands can have with their customers, how it can unlock the potential of data to signal, AI to inspire, and unmet needs to be met in emerging product propositions. You will have experience building and running enterprise platforms in a product oriented way.

The team

You will be part of the Technology leadership team working closely with fellow Engineering, Product and Business leaders in other domains. Given the broad reach of data across the whole organisation, your network will also incorporate the broader Senior Leadership Team across the business.

You will be accountable for managing, coaching and supporting two teams of Data / Analytics Engineers and ML Engineers. Who maintain and grow our data platform and our ML operations.

Impact and Contributions:

• Storio Group sees the Data platform as a significant driver of competitive advantage. We are embarking on an acceleration initiative to improve the underlying technology as we move out of our integration phase and into growth. We are currently defining our next phase of the Storio group Strategy (as we near the end of an integration/migration chapter post-merger, 2 years ago). We are now defining how we transition to growth - with ambitions that this can be to double-digit.
• We believe data, AI and ML should be front and centre of that vision - a key enabler for competitive advantage. The current state of our platform is not where it needs to be after multiple years of migrations. You will need to be comfortable balancing the competing needs of debt removal building towards our goal of the fast flow of value creation.
• We will also need to create a platform which empowers the needs of our ML team to build, test, run and improve our models. Leveraging the rich set of customer data to enable joy for our customers.
• Finally, all of these changes will need to be supported by a strong approach to governance and you will need to be comfortable supporting and enabling these processes.

Experience and Attributes you will need:

• Worked on both Strategy and Delivery of a data platform.
• Lead the strategy and execution of a data platform supporting self serve consumption and automation data products.
• Proven ability to balance the speed of delivery with the right long term technical solution, ensuring the platform is maintainable, scalable and secure.
• Ability to agree clear goals for the teams to deliver on the strategy.
• Experience managing managers of teams to successful delivery and measuring & managing team performance.
• Experience creating and managing governance through defined frameworks.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Demonstrable experience of working with stakeholders across the business to understand and help define their key priorities for data products.
• Comfortable and diplomatic enough to push back to keep focus on agreed goals.
• Is a great communicator, and can socialise the why, as well as the how, and when for the delivery.

Technical Experience

• Demonstrable experience across the data platform domain including: data platform ML Ops, technical architecture, business metric definition, modelling, and reporting.
• Experience working on big data systems with billions of rows of data.
• Has worked, understands and can recommend the different approaches to large scale data processing.

About us

We are Storio group, a place where life's stories are made, crafted and shared. A place where we create new ways to pass memories and stories between people and generations. And where, together, we make joy unforgettable. We bring our customers' stories to life through a range of high-quality personalised photo products, like photo books, wall decor, calendars & gifts. Our innovative technology enables customers to easily personalise their creations to keep for themselves or share as the most thoughtful of gifts.

Every single one of our employees brings something unique to Storio group and leaves a lasting imprint on our work, our culture and our company. Storio group is a place where we can all see and feel the impact of what we do, every day. A career with us is an opportunity to make your mark on our customers' lives and on your career.

Our values shape everything we do, from our interactions with customers and colleagues to the way we approach our work. We believe in fostering an environment where everyone can thrive and contribute to our shared success. At Storio group, we:

Act with heart: People - both customers and employees - are at the heart of all we do. So we embrace diversity and get to know each other as real people and build real relationships based on mutual understanding and respect.

Give our best: As the crafters and makers of people's memories, we play an important role in our customers' lives. That's why we give our best and work together to make the right decisions and build a better business every day.

Own all we do: We are all, as individuals and as a team, responsible for creating our success and shaping our future. We lead the charge and drive things forward - fully owning our actions and decisions along the way.

Embrace curiosity: We believe progress requires curiosity. So, we're relentlessly curious about the world and each other, actively seeking out diverse perspectives and always asking big questions like 'why' and 'what's next'?

Find the joy: At Storio, joy matters. We see it as a state of mind, so while we don't pretend every day will be easy, we do set out every day to intentionally find, create and share big and little moments of joy with our customers and teammates.

Equal opportunities statement

We are committed to promoting equal opportunities in employment regardless of age, disability, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

If you have a disability or special need that requires reasonable adjustments in order for you to perform at your peak during the interview, please let our HR team know ahead of time so that they can assist. We will consider the matter carefully and try to accommodate your needs within reason. If we consider a particular adjustment would not be reasonable we will explain our reasons and try to find an alternative solution where possible.

Sponsorship

We aren't able to offer sponsorship for this role so please only apply if you have the Right to Work without the need for sponsorship.