Senior Manager - Data Engineering

Storytelling is, and will always be, the heart of what we do at Skydance.
Our vision is to build a thriving entertainment ecosystem where stories and worlds are imagined, brought to life and experienced. We create for every age and audience, anchored by the strength of our content and experiences and the depth of our connection with fans. We are creator-first, audience-focused, tech-forward, globally scaled.

Here, you’ll work with talented teams that move fast, think boldly and collaborate with purpose to deliver results. We aim high, champion the best ideas and win together, earning the trust of our employees, creators, partners and audiences every day.

If you’re energized by the opportunity to help build the next-generation global media and entertainment company powered by creativity and technology, we’d be thrilled to welcome you aboard. LET’S GO!

Summary

The Applied Intelligence Data Engineering team is seeking a Sr. Data Engineering Manager to lead the strategy, design, delivery, and operational excellence of large-scale batch and real-time data platforms. This role will oversee multiple data engineering teams that power analytics, APIs, AI workflows, and mission-critical data services across the organization.
You will guide the design and implementation of distributed data systems. This includes ETL and ELT pipelines. You will also work with streaming platforms, warehouse ecosystems, and cloud-native infrastructure.

As a manager, you will shape technical direction, develop engineering talent, and ensure production-grade reliability, scalability, and operational rigor across data platforms.This role requires deep expertise in modern data architectures, distributed systems, and cloud-native engineering, plus proven experience leading multiple teams and managing managers or senior ICs.

Key Responsibilities

Lead & Scale Data Engineering Teams
•    Manage and develop a team of data engineers in charge of batch and streaming data systems.
•    Drive technical execution across ingestion, transformation, modeling, and serving layers.
•    Establish engineering standards, code quality practices, and architectural review processes.
•    Mentor engineers in distributed systems design, performance optimization, and production reliability.
•    Foster a culture of operational excellence, accountability, continuous improvement, and technical ownership.

Architect Scalable Data Platforms
•    Ensure scalable data modeling standards and efficient query performance across analytical workloads.
•    Help with important architectural choices. This includes orchestration. It also covers schema evolution. Additionally, it involves partitioning strategies and storage optimization.
•    Partner with streaming engineers to align batch and real-time data patterns into cohesive platform designs.
•    Ensure the platform is reliable by focusing on solid operational practices. This involves managing SLAs, monitoring performance, responding to incidents, and planning for capacity.

Cross-Functional Collaboration
•    Partner closely with Data Product Management to align roadmap priorities, SLAs, and platform KPIs.
•    Collaborate with software engineers to integrate streaming systems, APIs, and microservices into the broader data ecosystem.
•    Clearly explain architectural tradeoffs to stakeholders. Also, discuss delivery risks and operational constraints..

Technical Leadership
•    Lead architectural reviews and drive long-term platform strategy.
•    Foster a culture of ownership, documentation, and continuous improvement.
•    Stay current with evolving technologies and industry trends in cloud data platforms, distributed systems, and AI data infrastructure.

Required Skills & Experience

Modern Data Architecture
•    Strong expertise in data lakes, warehouses, and lakehouse architectures.
•    Deep knowledge of ETL/ELT frameworks, orchestration platforms, and distributed data processing systems.
•    Solid knowledge of Kafka-based architectures and event-driven data patterns.
•    You should be skilled in orchestration frameworks. You should have experience with workflow automation. Additionally, you should know how to manage production-grade pipelines.
•    Experience building and operating cloud-native data platforms in AWS, GCP, or OCI environments.

Distributed Systems & Scalability
•    Strong foundation in distributed systems engineering, scalability patterns, resiliency design, and high-availability architectures.
•    Experience optimizing performance, throughput, latency, and cost efficiency across large-scale data workloads.
•    Proficient in containerized infrastructure and Kubernetes with knowledge of Infrastructure-as-Code and modern deployment practices.

Team Development & Coaching
•    Proven experience hiring, onboarding, and retaining high-performing engineers across varying seniority levels.
•    Strong coaching, mentoring, and able to manage performance effectively
•    Committed to creating an inclusive and collaborative engineering culture that is also accountable.

Execution & Delivery Leadership
•    Strong sprint planning, capacity modeling, and roadmap sequencing skills.
•    Ability to manage competing priorities across reliability, feature delivery, and technical debt reduction.
•    Experience establishing engineering KPIs such as reliability, latency, throughput, and deployment frequency.

Qualifications
•    7 - 8+ years of experience in data engineering, software engineering, or platform engineering roles, with at least 5+ years of direct engineering management experience.
•    Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field; advanced degree preferred.
•    Proven experience leading engineering teams delivering large-scale production data platforms.
•    Strong foundation in distributed systems engineering and cloud-native architecture.
•   You must have well-developed communication skills. You should be good at working with different teams.
•    You should be self-motivated and focused on quality. You must also dedicate yourself to engineering excellence and maintain solid operational discipline.

Paramount Streaming, a division within Paramount Global, is the home to the company's direct-to-consumer services spanning free and paid in the form of Pluto TV and Paramount+. Pluto TV is the global leader in free ad-supported TV, delivering more than 1,400 global channels and an extensive library of streaming content, including live and original channels. Paramount+, digital subscription video-on-demand and live streaming service, combines live sports, breaking news, and A Mountain of Entertainment™. Paramount+ features an expansive library of original series, hit shows and popular movies across every genre from world-renowned brands and production studios, including SHOWTIME®.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Hiring Salary Range: $157,000.00 - 235,000.00. 

The hiring salary range for this position applies to New York, California, Colorado, Washington state, and most other geographies. Starting pay for the successful applicant depends on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education.  The benefits available for this position include medical, dental, vision, 401(k) plan, life insurance coverage, disability benefits, tuition assistance program and PTO or, if applicable,  as otherwise dictated by the appropriate Collective Bargaining Agreement. This position is bonus eligible.  

Skydance is an equal opportunity employer (EOE)

We embrace the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit. In line with the laws of the country or region in which the role is based, this includes consideration without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, religion or belief, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or protected veteran status, union status or any other category protected by applicable law.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability, you may request a reasonable accommodation during the job application and/or recruitment process. You can request reasonable accommodations by calling 212.846.5500 or by sending an email to [email protected]. Only messages left for this purpose will be returned.