Vice President, Data Platform Engineering

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Job Description

Ares Management is seeking a Vice President, Data Platform Engineering is responsible for the strategy, architecture, engineering, operations, and continuous evolution of the enterprise data platform ecosystem. This executive owns the Azure and Databricks foundation that powers data ingestion, transformation, analytics, AI/ML, and data product delivery across the organization.

The role is accountable for building and operating a secure, scalable, resilient, and high-performing cloud data platform, including Azure infrastructure, Databricks workspaces, networking, security, environment management, platform operations, DevOps, FinOps, observability, and reliability engineering. The VP will establish platform engineering capabilities that enable self-service, accelerate delivery, improve developer productivity, and ensure enterprise-grade governance and operational excellence.

This leader partners closely with Data Engineering, Data Ingestion & Integration, Data Distribution Services, AI/ML Engineering, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, Architecture, and Governance teams to provide a world-class data platform supporting enterprise growth and innovation.

Reporting relationships

Reports to: Principal, Head of Data Platforms

Supervises: n/a

Primary functions & responsibilities

Enterprise Data Platform Engineering

· Define and execute the enterprise Data Platform Engineering strategy and multi-year roadmap.

· Establish platform engineering standards, operating models, and governance frameworks.

· Build and lead high-performing teams responsible for cloud infrastructure, platform services, DevOps, SRE, and platform operations.

· Drive platform modernization, automation, and self-service enablement initiatives.

· Partner with executive leadership to align platform capabilities with business and technology objectives.

· Establish KPIs, SLAs, SLOs, and operational excellence metrics.

· Manage platform budgets, cloud spend, vendor relationships, and strategic technology investments. Serve as the platform owner for cloud data platform architecture, engineering standards, and technology roadmap.

· Partner with Infrastructure, security, and application teams to align data capabilities with business priorities.

· Drive modernization initiatives, including migration from legacy data warehouses and on-premises platforms to Azure.

Azure & Databricks Platform Ownership

· Define and execute the enterprise Data Platform Engineering strategy and multi-year roadmap.

· Establish platform engineering standards, operating models, and governance frameworks.

· Build and lead high-performing teams responsible for cloud infrastructure, platform services, DevOps, SRE, and platform operations.

· Drive platform modernization, automation, and self-service enablement initiatives.

· Partner with executive leadership to align platform capabilities with business and technology objectives.

· Establish KPIs, SLAs, SLOs, and operational excellence metrics.

· Manage platform budgets, cloud spend, vendor relationships, and strategic technology investments.

· Drive ongoing infrastructure optimization and capacity management

· Lead platform reliability and scalability improvements.

· Implement cost optimization and FinOps disciplines to maximize cloud efficiency.

Business & Stakeholder Engagement

· Partner directly with stakeholders across Investment Operations, Finance, Compliance, Investor Relations, Risk, and Investment teams.

· Translate complex business requirements into scalable technical solutions.

· Drive successful delivery of strategic data initiatives and enhancements.

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) & Operations

· Build and lead platform SRE capabilities.

· Define operational excellence standards and platform reliability targets.

· Implement incident management, problem management, and root-cause analysis processes.

· Establish disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities.

· Define backup, failover, and recovery strategies.

· Improve availability, resiliency, and operational maturity across the platform landscape.

Data Governance & Quality

· Implement and support data quality controls, lineage, metadata, and governance capabilities.

· Contribute to data security, privacy, and compliance requirements.

· Establish technical standards and engineering best practices.

Leadership & Collaboration

· Lead technical workstreams and complex engineering initiatives.

· Mentor junior team members and provide technical guidance.

· Participate in architecture discussions and technology evaluations.

· Collaborate with leadership on platform roadmap and prioritization efforts.

Qualifications

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field

Experience Required:

· Extensive experience designing, implementing, and operating enterprise-scale Azure and Databricks Lakehouse platforms, supporting analytics, data engineering, AI/ML, real-time processing, and data product workloads.

· Deep expertise architecting Azure cloud infrastructure including Azure Landing Zones, ExpressRoute, Azure DNS, Network Security Groups (NSG), Key Vault, Managed Identities, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Storage, and disaster recovery architectures.

· Strong hands-on experience administering and optimizing Databricks Workspaces, Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Cluster Policies, SQL Warehouses, Databricks Workflows, Serverless Compute, ML Workspaces, and workspace governance frameworks.

· Proven experience driving platform automation through Terraform, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing frameworks, release management processes, and environment promotion strategies.

· Deep expertise implementing platform observability utilizing Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, Azure Workbooks, Microsoft Sentinel, Databricks Lakehouse Monitoring, Databricks System Tables, Audit Logs, Cluster Metrics, Query History, and operational telemetry solutions.

· Strong experience with platform security and governance including Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), RBAC, Unity Catalog security models, Privileged Identity Management (PIM), encryption, secrets management, compliance monitoring, vulnerability management, and enterprise security controls.

· Proven success improving platform scalability, reliability, performance, and cost efficiency through Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), FinOps, workload optimization, capacity planning, automated remediation, performance tuning, resilience engineering, and operational excellence practices.

General Requirements:

• 15+ years of experience in cloud engineering, platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, or data platform architecture.
• 8+ years of leadership experience managing enterprise engineering organizations.
• Proven success designing and operating large-scale Azure and Databricks platforms.
• Strong background in DevOps, Infrastructure Engineering, Cloud Architecture, and Site Reliability Engineering.
• Experience leading cloud transformation and platform modernization initiatives.
• Financial Services, Asset Management, Banking, Insurance, or other regulated industry experience preferred.

Reporting Relationships

Compensation

The anticipated base salary range for this position is listed below. Total compensation may also include a discretionary performance-based bonus. Note, the range takes into account a broad spectrum of qualifications, including, but not limited to, years of relevant work experience, education, and other relevant qualifications specific to the role.

$210,000 - $230,000

The firm also offers robust Benefits offerings. Ares U.S. Core Benefits include Comprehensive Medical/Rx, Dental and Vision plans; 401(k) program with company match; Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA); Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSA) with company contribution; Basic and Voluntary Life Insurance; Long-Term Disability (LTD) and Short-Term Disability (STD) insurance; Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and Commuter Benefits plan for parking and transit.

Ares offers a number of additional benefits including access to a world-class medical advisory team, a mental health app that includes coaching, therapy and psychiatry, a mindfulness and wellbeing app, financial wellness benefit that includes access to a financial advisor, new parent leave, reproductive and adoption assistance, emergency backup care, matching gift program, education sponsorship program, and much more.

There is no set deadline to apply for this job opportunity. Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the search is no longer active.