Job Information
Publicis Groupe Associate Director, Data Technology & Engineering in El Segundo, California
Company description
Spark Foundry was built during the most transformative time in the history of advertising and marketing. We deliver everything a traditional media agency has to offer and have grown into one of the world’s most successful agencies by helping brands evolve their marketing by leveraging identity, commerce, artificial intelligence, and more to connect with people. Transformation is part of our DNA. Spark Foundry’s start-up spirit delivers high-touch approaches and a never-ending desire to challenge the status quo. Combined with Publicis Media’s powerhouse soul leveraging connected data assets, advanced AI applications, and investment clout, we “Bring HEAT to Brands.” No other agency possesses the expertise that we do to address today’s most pressing challenges to drive business transformation through media.
Overview
The Associate Director, Technology & Engineering is a senior‑level, hands‑on data engineer and technical leader within the Global Data Technology, Platforms & Governance function of the Data & Analytics organization. This role supports the design, build, and operation of scalable, automated data solutions that enable campaign delivery, performance optimization, and analytics use cases across the media lifecycle.
The Associate Director partners closely with analytics, product, and business stakeholders to translate business requirements and global business rules into technical architecture, data models, and automated pipelines. This role plays a key delivery leadership role within a distributed, cross‑functional engineering pod and contributes to engineering standards, best practices, and execution across regions.
Through hands‑on development, technical mentorship, and cross‑functional partnership, this role builds the depth, credibility, and organizational understanding required to progress toward broader technical and people leadership roles within the Data & Analytics organization.
Responsibilities
1) Architecture, Business Rules & Solution Design
Partner with Directors and analytics leadership to help define global business rules and translate them into scalable technical solutions.
Translate business requirements and use cases into data architectures, pipelines, models, and automation frameworks.
Contribute to architectural decisions across data ingestion, transformation, harmonization, storage, and downstream delivery.
Design and implement data transfer and integration frameworks that promote consistency, accuracy, and usability across markets.
Support ad tech and mar tech integration patterns, including identity resolution, data onboarding, clean room usage, and interoperability across platforms.
2) Hands ‑ On Engineering & Automation
Remain strongly hands‑on, developing and maintaining Python‑ and SQL‑based data pipelines, transformation logic, and automation workflows.
Lead execution for automation‑first solutions that reduce manual intervention, improve reliability, and increase development velocity.
Build and maintain workflows that transform raw, market‑level platform data into consolidated, reporting‑ready datasets.
Participate actively in testing, validation, and release processes across development, staging, and production environments.
3) Data Platform, Quality & Governance
Support end‑to‑end data flows to ensure accuracy, timeliness, and completeness across platforms and teams.
Monitor and validate quantitative accuracy of data feeds and APIs, identifying discrepancies and working with internal teams and vendors to resolve issues.
Identify and resolve data compliance and quality issues (e.g., misconfigured placements, missing IDs, API gaps).
Maintain documentation and stewardship of data collection, transformation, and reporting processes to ensure long‑term data integrity.
4) Team Leadership & Delivery
Act as a delivery lead and technical mentor for engineers across onshore and offshore teams.
Enforce engineering standards and best practices (coding, QA, documentation, performance, and security).
Guide engineers through problem‑solving, implementation tradeoffs, and solution design decisions.
Help ensure projects are delivered on time and at high quality in a fast‑paced, evolving technical environment.
5) Cross ‑ Functional Partnership & Enablement
Partner with Data Engineering, Governance, Measurement, Strategy, Activation, and Operations teams to align data solutions with business needs.
Provide technical consultation to internal teams on data capabilities, limitations, identity solutions, clean rooms, and measurement approaches.
Support Governance teams by ensuring data connectivity standards and best practices are followed across platforms.
Create and maintain clear technical and business requirements documentation.
Communicate status, risks, and dependencies clearly to stakeholders.
Support training and enablement efforts for onshore and offshore teams on data standards, tools, and governance practices.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications:
4-6+ years of experience in engineering or data technology roles, delivering scalable data integration and data warehouse solutions.
BS in Computer Science or equivalent education and professional experience.
Strong hands‑on experience with Python and SQL, including building and supporting production data pipelines.
Experience designing data warehouses, data marts, pipelines, and data models (fact/dimension concepts).
Working knowledge of ad tech and mar tech data ecosystems, including identity, measurement, and activation.
Experience implementing business rules and calculation logic within automated data solutions.
Strong analytical, debugging, and problem‑solving skills with a focus on data quality and reliability.
Experience working with or coordinating work across distributed or offshore teams.
Exposure to identity solution tools (e.g., Epsilon, Lotame, Neustar).
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to non‑technical audiences.
Highly organized and comfortable operating in a fast‑paced, evolving environment.
Preferred Experience
Experience working in an advertising agency, media, or marketing technology environment, supporting multi‑market or global teams.
Experience working with marketing and media data, including paid media, search, social, and site or platform analytics.
Exposure to clean rooms, CDPs, advanced audience strategies, or full‑funnel measurement approaches.
Experience using or supporting ETL and data integration tools (e.g., Talend, Informatica, SSIS).
Hands‑on experience with cloud data platforms, such as Redshift, Aurora, Azure Data Warehouse, Data Lake, or BigQuery.
Familiarity with CI/CD practices, orchestration tools, and code repositories (e.g., Git, Jenkins, Airflow).
Familiarity with BI and visualization tools (Power BI, Tableau) and analytics platforms (e.g., SAS, SPSS, R).
Tools & Platforms
Programming: Python, SQL
Cloud & Data: AWS, Redshift, Aurora, Azure Data Warehouse, Data Lake, BigQuery
Data Collection & APIs: Adverity and direct platform APIs
DevOps & Workflow: GitLab, Git, Jenkins, Airflow, email automation
BI & Analytics: Power BI, Tableau, SAS, SPSS, R
Media & Analytics Platforms: Google Campaign Manager, DV360, Trade Desk, TikTok, Snapchat, Amazon DSP, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Prisma
Collaboration: Microsoft Teams, AirTable, Smartsheets, HIVE
Additional information
Our Publicis Groupe motto “Viva La Différence” means we’re better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger. It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization. We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.
Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive. Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.
If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact USMSTACompliance@publicis.com .
Compensation Range: $135,375- $207,424 annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. Temporary roles may also qualify for participation in our 401(k) plan after eligibility criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 05/14/2026.
All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
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