Data Practice Director

About this role

<div class="content-intro"><p>Caylent is a cloud native services company that helps organizations bring the best out of their people and technology using Amazon Web Services (AWS). We provide a full-range of AWS services including workload migrations and modernization, cloud native application development, DevOps, data engineering, security and compliance, and everything in between.</p> <p>At Caylent, our people always come first.  We are a global company and operate fully remote with employees in Canada, the United States, and Latin America. We celebrate the culture of each of our team members and foster a community of technological curiosity. Come talk to us to learn more about what it means to be a Caylien!</p></div><h2><strong>The Role</strong></h2> <p>The Data Practice Director is a senior leadership role within Caylent's Cloud Data Engineering (CDE) practice, reporting directly to the Data Practice Leader. This person is responsible for operationalizing the practice strategy, leading a team of data professionals, and owning delivery excellence across a portfolio of client engagements. They are the connective tissue between strategic direction and day-to-day execution, ensuring the practice delivers consistent, high-quality outcomes while scaling to meet growth targets.</p> <h2><strong>Your Assignment</strong></h2> <h3><strong>Practice Operations and Delivery</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Own end-to-end delivery oversight for a portfolio of data engineering and analytics engagements, ensuring on-time, on-budget, and high-quality outcomes.</li> <li>Drive operational rigor across the practice including utilization management, staffing coordination, margin tracking, and engagement health reviews.</li> <li>Develop and enforce delivery standards, reusable frameworks, and best practices that enable consistent, scalable execution across the team.</li> <li>Serve as an escalation point for active engagements, helping resolve technical blockers, scope issues, and client concerns in partnership with delivery leads.</li> <li>Partner with the Practice Leader to translate the strategic roadmap into executable quarterly priorities and team-level OKRs.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Team Leadership and Development</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Directly lead and develop a team of data engineers, architects, and analytics professionals across the practice.</li> <li>Set clear performance expectations, conduct regular reviews, and provide ongoing coaching to build a high-performing, engaged team.</li> <li>Partner with recruiting and workforce planning to identify talent gaps, support hiring decisions, and onboard new team members effectively.</li> <li>Foster a culture of ownership, continuous learning, and technical excellence across a globally distributed team.</li> <li>Identify and develop emerging leaders within the practice, creating growth pathways aligned to practice needs.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Client Engagement</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Build trusted advisor relationships with key client stakeholders, acting as a senior point of contact for delivery and strategic guidance.</li> <li>Partner with the sales and GTM teams to support business development activities including scoping, proposal development, and technical solutioning for new and existing accounts.</li> <li>Identify and pursue expansion opportunities within active client engagements, surfacing new use cases and service offerings that align with client needs.</li> <li>Represent Caylent with credibility and professionalism in client-facing conversations at the director and VP level.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Practice Growth and Enablement</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Collaborate with the Practice Leader on go-to-market positioning, service offering development, and internal capability building.</li> <li>Contribute to thought leadership content including whitepapers, webinars, and conference presentations that elevate the practice's external profile.</li> <li>Stay current on trends in the modern data ecosystem and work with the team to incorporate relevant innovations into our delivery approach.</li> <li>Support the development of practice IP including accelerators, reference architectures, and reusable solution components.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Your Qualifications</strong></h2> <h3><strong>Experience</strong></h3> <ul> <li>12+ years of experience in professional services or consulting, with a strong focus on data engineering, analytics, or data platform delivery.</li> <li>Demonstrated success managing and growing a team of 20 or more data professionals in a services or consulting environment.</li> <li>Proven track record of delivering complex data projects on AWS, including data lake, lakehouse, streaming, and analytics workloads.</li> <li>Experience managing a portfolio of concurrent client engagements, balancing delivery quality with financial performance.</li> <li>Hands-on background in data architecture or engineering, with the ability to engage credibly with technical teams and client stakeholders alike.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Leadership</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Strong people management skills with demonstrated ability to develop talent, drive performance, and build team culture across geographies.</li> <li>Ability to operate effectively at multiple levels, from strategic planning conversations with the Practice Leader to…