Director Engineering Jobs in Minnesota (NOW HIRING)

About the Role:

We are looking for a seasoned Director of Engineering to join our Engineering organization atOvativeGroup. In this role, you will lead the Data Products and BI & ReportingEngineeringteams, serving as the senior leader responsible for the quality, operational health, and delivery, while sitting as part of our broader Engineering leadership org. These teams are central to howOvativescalesas Dataisat the heart of who we areand how we serve our clients. Data Productscreatesthedatafoundation to serve more clients reliably, and BI & Reporting turns that data into insights that create real impact for them.

You'lllead in a modern data environment (Databricks, Azure/GCP,dbt, etc.) with genuine autonomy over technical direction, not just implementation of decisions made elsewhere. You will own the engineering systems, standards, and processes that enable your teams to build and ship high-quality software reliably and at pace.You'llbe partnering closely with ProductManagers, Data Scientists, and cross-functional stakeholders to drive theEMRgetech stackforward. The ideal candidate brings deep engineering leadership experience, a strong instinct for operational excellence, anda track recordof building healthy, high-performing engineering teams.

Responsibilities of a Director of Engineering:

Engineering Excellence

• Define, implement, and continuously improve development standards, coding guidelines, and engineering governance controls across all product teams

• Own the quality framework for engineering: code review standards, testing strategy, release gates, and technical debt management

• Champion security, compliance, and data governance best practices within the engineering organization, including SOC2 alignment

• Drive architectural consistency and scalability across theEMRgeplatform, our proprietary technology product stack,and associated services

• Evaluate and introduce new tools, technologies, and practices that advance engineering maturity

Developer Operations

• Ownand partner acrossthe full software development lifecycle (SDLC) from planning through deployment, ensuring predictable, repeatable delivery processes

• Build andmaintainthe DevOps infrastructure and toolchain that enables developer productivity and deployment confidence

• Partner with Engineering Managers todeliversprint planning, capacity management, and delivery forecasting

• Trackand deliverengineering health metrics including cycle time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and mean time to recovery

• Identifyand systematically resolve developer experience friction across environments, tooling, and workflows

Engineering Team

• Directly manage and develop a team of Engineering Managersand Lead Engineers, providing coaching, expectation-setting, and career development support

• Foster a culture of accountability, psychological safety, continuous learning, andhigh standards

• Partner with recruiting to attract andretainoutstanding engineering talent; participate actively in hiring processes and candidate assessment

• Drive team health through regular engagement, team metric reviews, meaningful 1:1s, and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement

• ElevateOvative'sengineering brand through internal development programs, external community engagement, and content creation

Product Delivery

• Serve as the senior engineering accountability layer for on-time, high-quality delivery of product features and platform capabilities

• Partner with Product leadership to align roadmap priorities with engineering capacity and technical constraints

• Remove cross-functional blockers that impede delivery; escalate and resolve dependency and coordination issues across teams

• Provide transparent,accuratedelivery forecasting and status communication to engineering and product leadership

• Balance velocity and sustainability-ensuring teams canmaintaindelivery pace without compromising quality or team health

Requirements:

• 10+ years of engineering leadership experience, including direct management of Engineering Managers or senior technical leads

• Experience with cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure) and modern data infrastructure

• Demonstrated ability to build and run engineering operating systems: SDLC ownership, DevOps maturity, quality governance, and delivery metrics

• Track recordof developing high-performing, engaged engineering teams through coaching, accountability, and culture-building

• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills with the ability to lead discussions with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including senior product and business leaders

• Experience driving engineering standards and governance in a complex, multi-team product environment

• Ability to communicate technical concepts, tradeoffs, and delivery risk clearly to executive audiences

• Previoushands-on software development experience (front-end, back-end, or data engineering)

Preferred:

• Experience in a data-intensive SaaS or analytics product environment

• Familiarity with SOC2 compliance requirements and implementation in an engineering context

• Background in marketing technology, measurement, or analytics platforms