Job Information
Publicis Groupe Director, Data Technology & Engineering (Back End) 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 Director, Technology & Engineering is a senior technical leader and hands‑on engineer 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 Director partners closely with analytics and business stakeholders to translate business requirements and global business rules into technical architecture, data models, and automated pipelines.
The role provides technical leadership to a distributed, cross‑functional engineering pod, contributing to engineering standards, best practices, and delivery execution across regions. In addition, the Director supports the ongoing evolution of ad tech, mar tech, and data integration capabilities, helping teams operationalize data effectively across platforms, identity solutions, and measurement frameworks. Through hands‑on execution and cross‑functional enablement, this role builds the experience and influence needed for broader leadership within the Data & Analytics organization over time.
Responsibilities
1) Architecture, Business Rules & Solution Design
Serve as the primary technical architect, partnering closely with analytics and business leadership to define global business rules and apply them to end‑to‑end solution design.
Translate business requirements and use cases into scalable data architectures, pipelines, models, and automation frameworks.
Own architectural decisions across data ingestion, transformation, harmonization, storage, and downstream delivery across markets and regions.
Design data transfer and integration frameworks that ensure consistency, accuracy, and usability of data across consumers.
Provide technical guidance on ad tech and mar tech integration patterns, including identity resolution, clean room usage, data onboarding, and interoperability across platforms.
2) Hands ‑ On Engineering & Automation
Remain hands-on with coding, developing and maintaining Python/SQL-based pipelines, transformation logic, and automation scripts.
Drive automation-first approaches to reduce manual processes, improve reliability, and accelerate delivery.
Develop and maintain scripts and workflows that transform market-level raw platform data into consolidated, global reporting-ready datasets.
Lead and participate in integrated testing of pipelines and systems across development, test, and production environments.
3) Data Platform, Quality & Governance
Own the end-to-end global technical flow of data, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and completeness across platforms and teams.
Manage quantitative accuracy of data feeds and APIs, including discrepancy identification and resolution with internal teams and vendors (without owning vendor contracts or budgets).
Identify and resolve data compliance and quality issues (e.g., misconfigured placements, missing IDs, API gaps, duplicative inputs).
Maintain stewardship of data collection, transformation, and reporting processes to ensure long-term data integrity.
4) Team Leadership & Delivery
Lead a distributed onshore/offshore data engineering team delivering against defined client, analytics, and business deliverables.
Set engineering standards and best practices (coding, QA, documentation, performance, security).
Guide engineers through architectural decisions, complex problem-solving, and implementation tradeoffs.
Ensure projects are delivered successfully within optimized timelines in a fast-paced environment.
5) Cross ‑ Functional Partnership & Enablement
Act as the primary liaison between Data Engineering, Governance, and Measurement teams.
Partner with Strategy, Activation, and Operations teams to ensure data solutions align with audience strategy, activation needs, and measurement frameworks.
Provide technical consultation to internal teams and clients on the capabilities and limitations of the data ecosystem, including identity solutions, clean rooms, full‑funnel measurement approaches, and advanced audience use cases.
Partner with Governance to ensure internal teams follow organizational standards for data connectivity inputs across buying systems and vendor platforms inclusive of identity solutions tools
Create and maintain business and technical requirements documentation.
Provide clear status updates, escalate risks when appropriate, and facilitate alignment across stakeholders.
Support training and enablement for onshore and offshore teams related to technology standards and data governance.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications:
8+ years of experience in engineering or data technology roles, with demonstrated success 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, maintaining, and supporting production data pipelines.
Proven experience designing data warehouses, data marts, pipelines, and data models, including fact/dimension concepts.
Strong working knowledge of data flows and interoperability across ad tech and mar tech ecosystems, including identity, measurement, and activation.
Demonstrated ability to implement business rules and calculation logic into automated data solutions.
Excellent analytical, debugging, and problem‑solving skills, with a strong focus on data quality and reliability.
Experience leading or coordinating integrated workstreams across onshore and offshore teams.
Exposure to or experience working with identity solution tools (e.g., Epsilon, Lotame, Neustar).
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to non‑technical stakeholders.
Highly organized, detail‑oriented, and comfortable operating in a fast‑paced, evolving technical 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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