Director of Data & AI Engineering

The Role
Director Engineering (Data) | Reports To: Vice President, Engineering | Location: Bangalore

Who We Are

Solera is a global leader in data and software services that strives to transform every touchpoint of the vehicle lifecycle into a connected digital experience. In addition, we provide products and services to protect life’s other most important assets: our homes and digital identities. Today, Solera processes over 300 million digital transactions annually for approximately 235,000 partners and customers in more than 90 countries. Our 6,500 team members foster an uncommon, innovative culture and are dedicated to successfully bringing the future to bear today through cognitive answers, insights, algorithms and automation.  For more information, please visit solera.com.

What You’ll Bring

• Masters/ Bachelors degree in Computer Science (or related field) or equivalent
• Experience in Software Delivery, Managing Stakeholders and Managing Managers.
• Minimum Overall experience would be 15 years.
• Minimum 8 Years of Hands-on Development Experience in Data Engineering.
• Minimum 5 Years of Management experience and minimum 2 years in managing managers.
• An attitude to take technical and delivery problems head-on and leading from the front.
• You should be ready to roll up your sleeves and make your hands dirty whenever needed.
  Need to be hands on in coding. This is a tech first role.
  Hands On Experience in Agentic AI and Generative AI including - LLM training, Agentic Workflows, Prompt Engineerin, MCP, RAG
• Hands On Experience with Data Ingestion, ETL, Data Pipelines, Data Migration, Data Architecture

Technical Skills

• Programming Languages: Python, SQL, Java/Scala

• Big Data Technologies: Apache Spark, Hadoop, Kafka, Hive, Trino

• Any Cloud Platforms(AWS preferred):

•   AWS (S3, EC2, RDS, Lambda, DynamoDB, Glue)

•   Azure (Data Factory, Synapse, Databricks)

•   GCP (Big Query, Dataflow, Dataproc)

• Data Warehousing: Snowflake, Redshift, Big Query, Fabric Data Warehouse

• One or more of ETL/ELT Tools: Airflow, dbt, Informatica, Talend, Glue 

• Hands-on with GenAI

• Databases (A combination of 1 or more from each type):

•   Relational: PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle

•   NoSQL: MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB

•   Time-series: Influx DB, Timescale DB

• Container & Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes

• Version Control: Git, GitLab/GitHub workflows

• CI/CD: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI

Data Architecture Skills

Data modelling (dimensional, relational, NoSQL)

Database design and optimization

Batch and real-time pipeline architecture

Data mesh/data fabric architectures

Data lake and Lakehouse implementation

Understanding of API design and development and Microservices architecture is a plus

What You’ll Do

Technical Guidance:

You will provide technical leadership to a team of excellent software engineers; this requires that you have the technical depth to make complex design decisions and the hands-on ability to lead by example.

Execution and Delivery:

You will be expected to instill and follow good software development practices and ensure timely delivery of high-quality products. You should be familiar with agile practices as well as be able to adapt these to the needs of the business, with a constant focus on product quality.

Team management:

You will be responsible for hiring and mentoring your team; helping individuals grow in their careers, having constant dialogue about their aspirations and sharing prompt, clear and actionable feedback about performance.

Technical depth:

You have the strong technical competence required to gain credibility. Ability to architect, design and code yourself. Technical experience in building and operating cloud native applications and microservices. Deep understanding of all layers of the web-stack work (from the client interface to the database.) Knowledge of multiple technology stacks/languages/tools and their pros/cons.

Execution ability:

Focus on delivering products in a timely manner with high quality. Familiarity with multiple software development practices and tools, and the proven ability to adapt, champion and institute good practices and tools.

Create Plans and Systems:
Create and implement best practice engineering vision, strategy, policies, processes and procedures to aid and improve business performance. Ensure that engineering strategies and processes are in place to meet business objectives and operational needs in terms of price, quality and delivery targets and which enables the company to function and compete effectively in the market. Contribute to overall business strategy and annual budget process. Take ownership of the engineering policy, guidelines and any associated documents

General and Task Management:

Providing technical support to the business development, estimating and onsite engineering teams. Responsible for overseeing all aspects of build design, from contract award to handover. Develop planning and prioritize processes to ensure that multi-disciplinary resource is well aligned to maximize delivery of projects.

Oversee Developmental Processes

The Director of Engineering is charged with the task of evaluating schedules, quality assurance procedures and new releases in order to assess their value. Since the end goal of the Director of Engineering is to ensure that the engineering process runs smoothly, these developmental processes must be examined systematically and carefully so that the positive and negative aspects of each one can be properly weighed.

Continuous Improvement

Demonstrated thought leadership and a passion for identifying and pursuing new ideas and leveraging continuous improvement processes. Championed continuous improvement strategies to improve software bug rates and overall product quality. Work with production facilities to provide designs and processes for continuous improvement. Established and drove a clear and consistent culture of transparency, predictability, agility, continuous improvement, and accountability

Relationship Management

Develop and maintain strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders to ensure optimal performance. Work with the rest of the leadership team to decide which engineering projects are the highest priority against the business targets and which can be executed with the available resource. Work collaboratively, negotiate and engage with key stakeholders to facilitate delivery and compliance with the engineering strategy