Associate Director, Data Engineering

About this role

Brainlabs is the independent, founder-led agency building the future of media. We have over 1000 Brainlabbers based across the global, all united through the 12 principles laid out in our Culture Code. We're full-service, with people and AI agents working side by side, all aligned to one thing: maximizing our clients' revenue through a genuinely scientific approach to media. If you want to help play your part in achieving this for the world's biggest brands in an environment that will support and challenge you in equal measure, this is where you do it.

Role type: Full-time
Team: Data
Estimated Start: July 2026
Location: New York City, New York | Dallas Fort Worth, Texas | Boca Raton, Florida | Los Angeles, California | San Francisco, California
Compensation: We hire candidates across our US office locations and at varying levels of experience. Our posted salary ranges reflect differences in both location and experience, with final compensation determined once a candidate’s background and location are confirmed.
Work Authorization: Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. We are unable to provide visa sponsorship or continuation for this position.

What's the role

We are looking for a data engineer that will set the direction for how data is built at Brainlabs, not just how it's delivered on a given project. You'll lead a team of data engineers, own the technical standards the practice works to, and be the person clients and internal stakeholders rely on when the architectural decisions get hard. You'll still get into the work where it matters, but your primary leverage is through the people and systems you build

So, tell me about the company

Brainlabs is culture-first. You’ve probably heard other companies describe themselves as people, clients, or profit first – but we see people, clients and profit as the building blocks of our ecosystem. Culture powers all three and we know that when the ecosystem is balanced, we all win! That's why the culture we cultivate is a culture of winning together.

To learn more about what it’s like to be a Brainlabber, check out our culture code.

What you do

• Define and own the data engineering capability roadmap for NAMER, setting standards for how pipelines are designed, maintained, and scaled across the practice.

• Lead and develop a team of data engineers, providing technical direction, career development support, and hands-on guidance on complex problems.

• Architect scalable, production-grade data solutions on GCP, covering the full stack from ingestion and transformation through to warehousing and serving layers in BigQuery.

• Own the quality bar for data engineering output across the team, including pipeline reliability, query performance, data quality frameworks, and…