Data Strategy Engineer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Current Employees of Happen Bank: Please apply via your internal Workday Account
Happen Bank (formerly LendingClub) is built around a simple purpose: to clear the way to help people turn intention into action, and action into financial progress. That means offering focused products, a frictionless mobile-first experience, and clear terms with no gotchas. Respect and fairness is part of our DNA, and that ideal shapes how we work, how we treat each other, and how we invest in our employees and our community. Join us in using data, bold thinking, and a commitment to innovation to help clear the way for millions of Americans to achieve more.
About the Role
The VP, Business Data Delivery is responsible for delivering trusted, business-ready data products that power decision-making across Happen Bank -from Marketing, Personal Loans, Deposits, Credit Risk, Fraud, Operations, and Compliance.
This leader owns the data engineering, analytics engineering, data product management, and customer data delivery capabilities that translate business priorities into measurable outcomes. Partnering closely with business leaders and the VP, Data Platforms, this role defines how customer, product, and operational data is transformed into actionable insights, analytics, AI-enabled experiences, and decisioning capabilities.
Driven by Happen Bank's mission of improving the financial health of everyday Americans, the VP will build a data-driven culture, shape the company's customer data strategy, and lead the teams responsible for turning data into measurable business value.
What You'll Do
Business Data Strategy & Product Delivery

• Define and execute the strategy and roadmap for business-facing data products that support Marketing, Lending, Credit Risk, Fraud, Operations, Deposits, and Compliance
• Lead the delivery organization across Data Engineering, Analytics Engineering, Data Product Management, and Data Science
• Partner with business leaders to translate strategic priorities into scalable data products and measurable outcomes
• Establish operating models that ensure data investments align with business value, adoption, and business outcomes
• Lead the Data Product Management practice, including intake management, prioritization frameworks, delivery governance, and the operating model between business stakeholders and delivery teams

Customer Data & Activation

• Own the end-to-end customer data product strategy, including customer, product, and behavioral data integration
• Deliver trusted customer data capabilities that power marketing activation, personalization, credit and fraud decisioning, collections strategy, and operational intelligence
• Lead Customer Data Platform (CDP) initiatives, identity resolution capabilities, and downstream activation across business functions
• Partner with business teams to evolve the customer data strategy and ensure a unified customer view across the enterprise

Analytics, AI & Business Insights

• Define the strategy for business-facing analytics, AI enablement, and self-service data products
• Lead analytics initiatives that directly support business outcomes and prepare data products for AI and machine learning use cases
• Drive adoption of AI-assisted data discovery, automated insight generation, and GenAI-powered self-service capabilities
• Enable advanced analytics and machine learning through high-quality, business-ready data products that accelerate decision-making

Data Quality, Governance & Delivery Excellence

• Establish standards for data quality, certification, testing, QA, and governance throughout the data product lifecycle
• Ensure business confidence in data products through robust validation, monitoring, and delivery processes
• Partner closely with the VP, Data Platforms to align delivery capabilities with platform strategy, architecture, and engineering standards
• Promote strong data practices and ensure data requirements are incorporated early in product and business planning processes

Leadership & Business Partnership

• Build a data-driven culture by embedding data product management and analytics capabilities close to the business and holding teams accountable for outcomes, not output
• Lead and develop high-performing teams across Data Engineering, Analytics Engineering, Data Product Management, and Data Science
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Attract, coach, mentor, and retain exceptional technical, analytical, and product talent
• Serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership on data strategy, customer data, analytics, and AI opportunities

About You

• 13+ years of data engineering, analytics engineering, data product management, or related technology experience, including 10+ years leading and developing teams across data engineering, analytics, and data product management
• 5+ years leading large-scale data products, customer data platforms, analytics organizations, or business-facing data delivery functions in a public cloud environment
• Demonstrated experience building data products and services that support customer experiences, marketing activation, credit decisioning, fraud detection, operations, and business intelligence
• Experience leading customer data delivery, Customer Data Platform programs, identity resolution capabilities, and downstream activation use cases
• Strong understanding of modern data architectures, customer data platforms, analytics ecosystems, and data product operating models
• Experience leading Data Engineering, Analytics Engineering, Data Product Management, or Data Science organizations
• Ability to translate business objectives into data product strategies and measurable outcomes
• Strong executive communication skills with the ability to influence business, technology, and regulatory stakeholders
• Experience promoting data literacy and building data-driven cultures across technical and non-technical organizations
• Strong understanding of modern data tooling and ecosystems, including lakehouse platforms (Databricks preferred), transformation tooling (dbt), BI platforms (Tableau), and cloud-native data architectures
• Hands-on familiarity with advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI-enabled business capabilities
• Experience operating within highly regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, or similar environments
• Ability to deliver value quickly and incrementally while balancing strategic objectives and business priorities
• Bachelor's degree or higher, or equivalent combination of education and experience

Nice to Have

• Experience working in both high-growth organizations and large-scale enterprises
• Understanding of consumer financial products, personal financial management, lending, deposits, fraud, or risk domains
• Experience building data products for credit risk, fraud, collections strategy, marketing, or operations analytics
• Experience with AWS and modern cloud-native data ecosystems
• Experience leading enterprise AI enablement initiatives and modern data product transformations
• Proven ability to attract, hire, and develop exceptional technical and product talent

Work Location
San Francisco
The above locations are eligible offices for this role. The locations have been determined to foster in-person collaboration with this role's team or the related business lines. We utilize a hybrid work model, and our teams are in-office Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. In-person attendance is essential for this role's success, and remote placement will not be considered. Happen Bank offers relocation, based on actual job level.
Time Zone Requirements
Primarily PT
While the position will primarily work local hours, Happen Bank is headquartered in Pacific Time and our ideal candidate will be flexible working across time zones when necessary.
Travel Requirements
As needed travel to Happen Bank offices and/or other locations, as needed.
Compensation
The target base salary range for this position is 240,000-270,000. The base salary of the role will be determined by job-related knowledge, experience, education, skills, and location. Base salary is just one part of Happen Bank 's Total Rewards package. You may also be eligible for long-term awards (equity) and an annual bonus (which is based on company performance, employee performance and eligible earnings).
We're creating new financial services solutions for our members based on fairness, simplicity, and heart, and we treat our employees the same way. We offer a competitive benefits package that includes medical, dental and vision plans for employees and their families, 401(k) match, health and wellness programs, flexible time off policies for salaried employees, up to 16 weeks paid parental leave and more.
#LI-Hybrid
#LI-HB1
Happen Bank is an equal opportunity employer and dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We believe that a variety of perspectives will make our teams and business stronger as we work together to transform the traditional banking system.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application process. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please contact us at interviewaccommodations@happen.com.
Notice on AI Tool Use
For select roles and locations, candidate interviews may be recorded, transcribed and summarized by tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) to assist our hiring managers with the application process.
You will have the opportunity to opt out of recording, transcription, and summarization prior to any scheduled interviews. We will not discriminate against you if you choose to opt out.
During the interview, we will collect the following categories of personal information from or about you: contact information, identifiers, professional and employment-related information, sensory information (audio/video recording), and any other categories of personal information you choose to share with us. We will use this information to evaluate your application for employment.
We will only share your interview, transcription, or summary with persons whose expertise or technology is necessary to process your application, evaluate your fitness for a position, and administer or support the tool. We will not sell your personal information or disclose it to any third party for their marketing purposes. For more information about how we will handle your personal information, please refer to our Privacy Disclosure.
We will delete any recording of your interview promptly but in no event later than 30 days after making a hiring decision.