Director Data Engineering Jobs in Missouri (NOW HIRING)

Brainlabs is the media agency built to answer one question: what’s actually driving profit? Founded in 2012, Brainlabs has grown with engineers at its core. Today, 1,000+ Brainlabbers across five continents use our proprietary agents, built on 32 media tools and over 2,500 logged experiments, to help brands connect every channel they plan and buy to one thing: the bottom line.

Role type: Full-time | Team: Data | Location: New York City, NY; Dallas Fort Worth, TX; Boca Raton, FL; Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA. Compensation is determined by location and experience. 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.

We are looking for a data engineer who 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 architectural decisions get hard. You’ll still contribute to hands-on work where it matters, but your primary leverage is through the people and systems you build.

• 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 ingestion, transformation, 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 documentation standards.
• Partner with Data Science, Digital Analytics, and client teams to scope and deliver integrated data solutions, translating complex business requirements into sound technical architecture.
• Represent the data engineering practice in client conversations and new business contexts, communicating technical approaches clearly to non-technical stakeholders and contributing to proposals and SOW scoping.
• Drive adoption of engineering best practices across the team, including CI/CD, version control, infrastructure-as-code, data governance, and security on GCP.
• Evaluate and introduce new tooling and approaches, including orchestration platforms, streaming architectures, and GCP AI/ML capabilities, where they materially improve what the team can deliver.

• A technically deep data engineering leader who has grown past needing to prove themselves through individual output and is ready to be judged by what their team produces. You’ve made architectural decisions that mattered, managed engineers, and can hold a technical conversation with a client without it feeling like a lecture.

• 8+ years in data engineering, with at least 3 years in a leadership or senior technical lead role.
• Deep hands-on expertise with GCP, including BigQuery, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, and Cloud Composer.
• Strong Python and SQL skills, with a track record of building and reviewing production-grade pipelines, not just prototypes.
• Proven experience designing data warehouse and data mart architectures for analytics and reporting at scale.
• Solid grounding in both batch and streaming pipeline patterns, and the judgment to know which one a given problem actually needs.
• Experience with orchestration tools (Apache Airflow, Cloud Composer, or equivalent) and CI/CD practices including Git, Terraform, and pipeline deployment workflows.
• Working knowledge of data governance, security, and compliance considerations in cloud environments.
• Exposure to additional cloud stacks (AWS or Azure) and GCP AI/ML tooling is a plus.
• Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field. GCP certification is a bonus, not a requirement.

You succeed when the team ships reliable, well-documented data infrastructure that the rest of the practice can build on with confidence. Clients trust the technical advice they get from you. The engineers you manage are growing. The data engineering practice has a clear point of view on how things should be built because you’ve put one in place.

Brainlabs actively seeks and encourages applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds and identities. We are an equal opportunity workplace and are committed to equal opportunity for all applicants and employees regardless of age, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion, or belief. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the application process, please let us know. We will never ask you to transfer cash or make any other payment to apply for a role. Any such asks are fraudulent and should be reported to the appropriate authorities.

$68,000 - $150,000 USD