Samba TV

Delivers TV audience measurement and insights

Senior Director - Data Platform and Cloud Services

Engineering LeadershipConfirmed live in the last 24 hours

Full-timeWarsaw, PolandPLN580k - PLN682k /yr

About the Job

Requirements

At least 12 years of experience in data platform or infrastructure roles, including at least 5 years in senior leadership.
A proven track record of leading large-scale platform transformations.
Experience building production embedding systems and vector databases.
A history of building and scaling teams of 20 or more engineers.
Deep expertise in modern data architectures, including data mesh, lakehouse, and streaming-first architectures.
Proficiency with stream processing tools such as Kafka, Flink, and Spark Streaming; modern data warehouses and lakes such as Snowflake, Databricks, and BigQuery; workflow management tools such as Airflow; container orchestration such as Kubernetes, EKS, and GKE; infrastructure as code such as Terraform and CloudFormation; and ML platforms such as MLflow, Kubeflow, and SageMaker.
Ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
Ability to balance long-term vision with short-term deliverables.
Business acumen to connect technical decisions with business outcomes.
Track record of influencing across organizational boundaries without formal authority.
Knowledge of privacy-preserving analytics and clean room technologies.
Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field.

Responsibilities

Define and execute a transformative vision for data platform architecture that scales to billions of daily events.
Partner with the CTO and engineering leadership to align platform strategy with business objectives.
Drive adoption of next-generation technologies, including vector databases and ML-powered analytics.
Build strategic roadmaps that balance innovation with operational excellence.
Lead the evolution of the current platform into a modern, cloud-native data platform with embedded ML and AI capabilities.
Work with the team to deliver fault-tolerant, multi-region architectures supporting real-time and batch processing.
Build and maintain the services, platforms, and frameworks enabling data engineering teams.
Architect embedding-based systems for content understanding, viewer similarity, and semantic search.
Deliver infrastructure for vector storage, indexing, and retrieval at scale.
Champion best practices in data governance, security, and compliance, including GDPR and CCPA.
Evaluate and implement emerging technologies, including streaming architectures, lakehouse patterns, and ML platforms.
Design platforms for embedding generation, storage, and serving at scale.
Implement vector search capabilities for real-time recommendations and content discovery.
Build infrastructure supporting multimodal embeddings for video, audio, and text metadata.
Enable self-service ML capabilities for data scientists and analysts.
Establish MLOps practices for embedding model lifecycle management.
Build and mentor a team of platform engineers, ML engineers, and architects.
Foster a culture of innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning.
Establish clear career paths and growth opportunities for team members.
Drive cross-functional collaboration with data science, product, and engineering teams.
Establish SLAs and monitoring frameworks for internal and external clients.
Provide observability tools for Data Engineering and Data Science, including tools to enforce data quality.
Lead vendor relationships and technology partnerships.
Drive automation and self-service capabilities for internal customers.

Desired Qualifications

Contributions to open-source projects in ML infrastructure or vector search.

Salary Range: 580000 to 682000 (Currency: PLN) (Pay period: per-year-salary)

Samba is a media intelligence company. We know what the world is watching, reading, and thinking about — in real time, at scale, across every screen. Our data exists with the consent of over a billion people, organized into the most complete picture of consumer attention ever built. The biggest brands in the world use that picture to make smarter decisions. We think it’s the most interesting data asset on the planet, because it’s the most culturally relevant.

We're seeking a Senior Director to lead and transform our data platform and cloud services architecture. This role is not about incremental improvements – we need someone who can lead and execute a leap forward in our data infrastructure capabilities, positioning Samba at the forefront of TV data analytics and AI-driven insights.

What you’ll do:

Strategic Leadership

Define and execute a transformative vision for our data platform architecture that scales to billions of daily events

Partner with CTO and engineering leadership to align platform strategy with business objectives

Drive adoption of next-generation technologies including vector databases and ML-powered analytics

Build strategic roadmaps that balance innovation with operational excellence

Technical Architecture

Lead the evolution from current state to a modern, cloud-native data platform with embedded ML/AI capabilities

Work with the team to deliver fault-tolerant, multi-region architectures supporting real-time and batch processing

Build and maintain the services, platforms, and frameworks enabling Samba’s data engineering teams

Architect embedding-based systems for content understanding, viewer similarity, and semantic search

Deliver infrastructure for vector storage, indexing, and retrieval at scale (billions of embeddings)

Champion best practices in data governance, security, and compliance (GDPR, CCPA)

Evaluate and implement emerging technologies (streaming architectures, lakehouse patterns, ML platforms)

ML/AI Infrastructure

Design platforms for embedding generation, storage, and serving at scale

Implement vector search capabilities for real-time recommendations and content discovery

Build infrastructure supporting multimodal embeddings (video, audio, text metadata)

Enable self-service ML capabilities for data scientists and analysts

Establish MLOps practices for embedding model lifecycle management

Team & Organizational Development

Build and mentor a world-class team of platform engineers, ML engineers, and architects

Foster a culture of innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning

Establish clear career paths and growth opportunities for team members

Drive cross-functional collaboration with data science, product, and engineering teams

Operational Excellence

Establish SLAs and monitoring frameworks for internal and external clients

Provide observability tools for Data Engineering and Data Science, including tools to enforce data quality

Lead vendor relationships and technology partnerships

Drive automation and self-service capabilities for internal customers

Who you are:

12+ years in data platform/infrastructure roles, with 5+ years in senior leadership

Proven track record of leading large-scale platform transformations

Experience building production embedding systems and vector databases

History of building and scaling teams of 20+ engineers

Deep expertise in modern data architectures (data mesh, lakehouse, streaming-first)

Proficiency with, Stream processing (Kafka, Flink, Spark Streaming), Modern data warehouses/lakes (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery), Workflow management (Airflow, etc), Container orchestration (Kubernetes, EKS/GKE), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation), ML platforms (MLflow, Kubeflow, SageMaker)

Exceptional communication skills to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences

Strategic thinking with ability to balance long-term vision with short-term deliverables

Strong business acumen to connect technical decisions with business outcomes

Track record of influencing without authority across organizational boundaries

Knowledge of privacy-preserving analytics and clean room technologies

Contributions to open-source projects in ML infrastructure or vector search

Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field

Samba is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We strive to empower connection with one another, reflect the communities we serve, and tackle meaningful projects that make a real impact.

Samba may collect personal information directly from you, as a job applicant, Samba may also receive personal information from third parties, for example, in connection with a background, employment or reference check, in accordance with the applicable law. For further details, please see Samba's Applicant Privacy Policy. For residents of the EU , Samba Inc. is the data controller.

About the Company

Samba TV

Delivers TV audience measurement and insights

Samba TV collects and analyzes TV viewing data to help advertisers, broadcasters, and content creators understand what people watch. It embeds its technology in about 35 million smart TVs across 20 brands, creating a large viewership database and a household identity graph. The system works by using a proprietary multi-source panel from participating TVs to gather viewing activity, then turning that data into insights and analytics that clients can use to plan ads, optimize content, and measure performance. What sets Samba TV apart is the size and scope of its data: it claims the largest end-to-end viewership dataset and identity graph in the industry, with a panel hundreds of times larger than typical measurements and broad brand partnerships, while offering privacy controls for viewers who opt in or out. The company aims to provide data-driven, actionable insights to improve advertising effectiveness and content delivery across the global smart TV market.

Company size: 201-500
Company stage: Debt Financing
Total funding: $75.7M
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Founded: 2008

Recently Posted Jobs

Explore more opportunities at Samba TV

See more jobs