Senior Director, Data Platform Engineering at Coursera Sourcing

United States

$233k - $365k

<div class="content-intro"><p><strong>About Coursera</strong></p> <p><strong>Coursera and Udemy are now one company, creating one of the world’s most comprehensive skills development platforms for the AI era. This strengthens our ability to accelerate AI-powered innovation and shape how the world discovers and builds skills at a pivotal moment of change. Read more about the combined company by visiting our <a href="https://blog.coursera.org/coursera-and-udemy-are-now-one-company-creating-the-worlds-most-comprehensive-skills-platform/" target="_blank">blog</a>.</strong></p> <p>Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. Coursera partners with leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and degrees. Coursera’s platform innovations — including AI-powered personalized guide and features, like Role Play and Course Builder, and role-based solutions like Skills Tracks — enable instructors, partners, and companies to deliver scalable, personalized, and verified learning. Institutions worldwide rely on Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, students, and citizens in high-demand fields such as GenAI, data science, technology, and business, while learners globally turn to Coursera to master the skills they need to advance their careers. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a B Corp. Coursera recently combined with Udemy to create one of the world’s most comprehensive skills development platforms.</p> <p><strong>Why Join Us</strong></p> <p>At Coursera, we’re looking for inventors, innovators, and lifelong learners ready to shape the future of education. You’ll help build global programs and tools that power online learning for millions turning bold ideas into real impact. People who thrive here are customer-first builders who move fast, simplify ruthlessly, and iterate relentlessly on the metrics that matter.&nbsp;</p> <p>We’re a globally distributed team that comes together intentionally for collaboration, complex problem-solving, and key milestones — creating opportunities for teams to do their best work together. Our virtual hiring and onboarding experience makes it easy to join us and start making an impact from anywhere. If you’re ready to make a global impact, help scale unique products across Coursera + Udemy, and grow your career, apply below.</p></div><p><strong>Job Overview:&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>The Data Platform organization is responsible for building the foundational infrastructure, services, and governance that enable the company to operate as a truly data-driven enterprise. Our platform powers analytics, machine learning, experimentation, personalization, business intelligence, and AI initiatives across every function of the company. Today, the organization operates a modern cloud-native data ecosystem spanning data lakes and warehouses, and self-service data capabilities that empower thousands of internal users.</p> <p>As the <strong>Senior Director of Data Platform Engineering</strong>, you will define and execute the long-term vision for the company's data platform strategy while leading a global organization responsible for the architecture, reliability, scalability, security, and evolution of our enterprise data ecosystem.</p> <p>You will partner closely with Engineering, Product, Data Science, AI/ML, Infrastructure, Security, Finance, and executive leadership to transform data infrastructure into a strategic competitive advantage. This role requires a seasoned technology executive who can balance technical innovation, organizational leadership, operational excellence, and business outcomes while enabling the next generation of AI-powered products and data-driven decision making. As Coursera and Udemy integrate, this role is key to creating a successful data driven company.</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities:</strong></p> <h3><strong>Strategic Leadership</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Define and execute a multi-year vision and roadmap for the company's enterprise data platform aligned with business and technology strategy.</li> <li>Drive platform modernization initiatives supporting analytics, AI/ML, experimentation, and product innovation.</li> <li>Establish engineering investment priorities and technology strategy in partnership with executive leadership.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Organizational Leadership</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Build, lead, and scale a high-performing global Data Platform Engineering organization, including senior managers, engineering managers, staff engineers, and principal engineers.</li> <li>Recruit exceptional technical leaders while developing strong succession planning and leadership pipelines.</li> <li>Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, operational excellence, and continuous learning.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Platform Architecture &amp; Engineering</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Own the architecture and operation of highly scalable cloud-native data platforms supporting petabyte-scale storage and processing.</li> <li>Lead engineering efforts across batch processing, real-time streaming, metadata management, governance, platform tooling, and self-service infrastructure.</li> <li>Champion modern engineering practices including Infrastructure as Code, Kubernetes, platform automation, observability, developer productivity, and platform reliability.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Cross-Functional Partnership</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Partner with senior leaders across Engineering, Product, AI/ML, Analytics, Infrastructure, Security, and Finance to align platform investments with business priorities.</li> <li>Serve as the executive sponsor for enterprise-wide data initiatives and influence technical direction across the company.</li> <li>Represent Data Platform Engineering in executive planning, architecture reviews, and technology governance.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Operational Excellence</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Establish KPIs and operational metrics for platform availability, scalability, adoption, reliability, performance, and cloud efficiency.</li> <li>Drive continuous improvements in developer experience, self-service capabilities, security, compliance, and operational maturity.</li> <li>Ensure the platform meets enterprise requirements for governance, privacy, and data quality.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Technology Innovation</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends to evolve the company's modern data architecture.</li> <li>Enable AI-first platform capabilities that accelerate machine learning development and data product creation.</li> <li>Promote technical excellence through architecture reviews, engineering standards, and technical mentorship.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Basic Qualifications:</strong></p> <ul> <li>15+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed data platforms or cloud infrastructure.</li> <li>8+ years of engineering leadership experience managing managers and multi-level engineering organizations.</li> <li>Demonstrated success building and scaling global engineering organizations supporting mission-critical platforms.</li> <li>Proven experience defining and executing long-term technology strategies that align with business objectives.</li> <li>Expertise in Databricks</li> <li>Deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, and modern data platforms.</li> <li>Hands-on knowledge of technologies such as Spark, Kafka, Trino/Presto, Flink, Iceberg, Delta Lake, Airflow, or equivalent large-scale data technologies.</li> <li>Strong understanding of data warehousing, streaming architectures, lakehouse platforms, metadata management, and data governance.</li> <li>Expertise with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible), Kubernetes, container orchestration, CI/CD, and cloud-native infrastructure.</li> <li>Strong understanding of platform observability, reliability engineering, security, and operational excellence.</li> <li>Outstanding executive communication, organizational leadership, and stakeholder management skills.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Preferred Qualifications:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Experience implementing enterprise data governance, privacy, compliance, and security programs.</li> <li>Experience supporting modern lakehouse architectures and data mesh implementations.</li> <li>Experience leading platform engineering organizations within consumer technology companies.</li> <li>Experience managing globally distributed engineering organizations across multiple regions.</li> <li>Demonstrated success influencing executive leadership and board-level technology strategy.</li> <li>Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Keep Learning</strong></h3> <p>If this opportunity interests you, you might like these courses on Coursera:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/ibm-data-engineer">IBM Data Engineering Professional Certificate | Coursera</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/open-source-data-engineering-with-spark-dbt-and-airflow">Open source Data Engineering with Spark, dbt &amp; Airflow Professional Certificate | Coursera</a></li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Compensation / Location:</strong><strong>&nbsp; </strong>At Coursera, we offer competitive, zone-based pay aligned to your location, experience, and role level. Our total rewards package goes beyond salary, with comprehensive health and wellness benefits, bonus and RSU equity programs, and global perks designed to help you grow and thrive wherever you are.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>This role is only available for hire in:&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>US Zone 1: $292,000 - $365,000</p> <p>US Zone 2: $262,000 - $328,000</p> <p>US Zone 3: 248,000 - $310,000</p> <p>US Zone 4: $233,000 - $292,000</p> <p><strong>US Pay Zones:</strong></p> <ul> <li>US-Z1: Bay Area (within 75 miles)</li> <li>US-Z2: NYC and Seattle Metro (within 75 miles)</li> <li>US-Z3: CA, WA, NY, NJ, CO, CT, DC, GA, IL, MA, MD, OR, RI, TX, VA</li> <li>US-Z4: AK, AZ, DE, FL, HI, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NV, NH, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, UT, VT, WI</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-size: 8pt;">#PL-1</span></p><div class="content-conclusion"><div> <p>For more information about how Coursera collects and uses your personal information, please see our <u><span><a href="https://files.clinchtalent.com/1d7f2c0f91ebf75d580f56447fa54859/2acb24eb91f1e23b90ac9e9285de5aaf/Global%20Applicant%20Privacy%20Notice.docx%20(1).pdf" target="_blank">Global Applicant Privacy Notice</a></span></u><u>.</u></p> <p>To protect against recruitment fraud, Coursera + Udemy recruiters only communicate via official coursera.org/udemy.com email addresses and never through personal accounts. We do not accept resumes via email or social media; please submit all applications directly through our careers page.</p> <p>If you encounter suspicious recruitment activity, please report it via our&nbsp;<a href="https://forms.gle/Mb8UktwuaJAukb3H7">Fraudulent Activity Submission Form.</a></p> </div> <div>If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, please contact us at recruiting@coursera.org.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div></div>