Working within a federated operating model where business areas retain accountability for their data and business outcomes, the Director partners with business leaders, I&IT, Enterprise Architecture, Data Governance, Cybersecurity, AI teams and strategic vendors to ensure enterprise data capabilities are secure, governed, interoperable, cost-effective and aligned with Metrolinx's Enterprise Data and AI strategies.
The Director also provides leadership to multidisciplinary engineering teams and strategic partners, establishing modern engineering practices, platform standards and delivery disciplines while building the organizational capabilities required to scale data and AI across Metrolinx.
What will I be doing?
Strategy and leadership: Develop and operationalize Metrolinx's Enterprise Data Platform strategy and roadmap, translating the Enterprise Data and AI strategies into platform capabilities, investment priorities and measurable maturity targets.
Platform ownership: Own the enterprise data platform as a strategic enterprise capability, including its architecture, engineering, scalability, performance, reliability, lifecycle and ongoing evolution.
Data platform modernization: Lead the modernization of Metrolinx's data environment toward a scalable, cloud-native and AI-ready architecture, evolving data lake and related capabilities into a modern enterprise data platform that supports analytics, reporting, machine learning, generative AI and enterprise data products.
Data engineering: Establish and lead enterprise data engineering capabilities, including ingestion, integration, transformation, orchestration and reusable data pipelines, enabling trusted data to move efficiently from source systems into enterprise analytical and AI environments.
Engineering excellence: Establish engineering standards and practices for DataOps, DevOps, CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, automated testing, observability, monitoring and release management to improve the quality, speed and reliability of data platform delivery.
AI-ready data foundation: Partner with AI teams to ensure enterprise data and platform capabilities can securely support machine learning, advanced analytics and generative AI use cases, including appropriate data access, integration, scalability, governance and operational controls.
Reusable data capabilities: Establish common enterprise data services, patterns and reusable components that reduce duplication and accelerate the delivery of data, analytics and AI solutions across Metrolinx.
Delivery management: Deliver projects on scope, on time and on budget, using a Lean Agile approach with clear milestones. Work with Scrum Masters, Product Owners and vendors to prioritize software work and keep quality high.
Enterprise data architecture: Own and evolve Metrolinx's enterprise data architecture, including target-state architecture, standards, principles, patterns and roadmaps. Establish architectural guardrails for data platforms, integration, storage, data movement and data products to enable interoperability, reuse and scalability across the enterprise. Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity, Data Governance and business technology teams to ensure data solutions align with broader enterprise architecture and technology strategies.
Architecture governance: Establish and oversee data architecture governance to ensure new solutions and investments align with enterprise data standards and target-state architecture, reducing duplication, technical debt and unnecessary point-to-point integration.
Executive communication: Run strategic workshops with the business to define goals and requirements. Prepare regular updates for the CIO, CFO and executive team. Handle escalations with solutions ready.
Stakeholder partnerships: Build trusted relationships at executive and working levels with internal teams, vendors, partners, government and agencies. Act as a Metrolinx ambassador in public presentations and meetings.
Financial stewardship: Own annual and long-term budgets, staffing plans and ROI. Put in place the controls and reporting for cost management. Hold signing authority within the role's scope.
People leadership: Lead a large department through subordinate supervisors. Set clear roles and expectations, give timely feedback and address performance gaps. Build a "best company to work for" culture.
Talent and vendor scale-up: Work with other senior technology leaders to scale a 50+ member team of internal and external resources across multiple geographies. Keep the talent and vendor mix right. Mentor talent in line with future I&IT strategy.
What Skills and Qualifications Do I Need?
Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data/Information Management or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education, training and senior-level experience.
Significant leadership experience building and operating enterprise-scale data platforms, data engineering capabilities and cloud data environments within a complex organization.
Strong knowledge of modern data-platform architectures, including cloud data platforms, data lakes/lakehouses, data warehousing, data integration, APIs and distributed data-processing patterns.
Demonstrated experience modernizing legacy data environments and establishing cloud-native, scalable and reusable data-platform capabilities.
Strong understanding of Microsoft Azure data technologies and contemporary platforms such as Azure Databricks and Microsoft Fabric, or comparable enterprise technologies.
Experience establishing DataOps/DevOps practices, CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, automated testing, observability and production engineering standards.
Demonstrated experience enabling enterprise analytics, machine learning and generative AI workloads through well-governed and scalable data platforms.
Strong knowledge of enterprise data governance, data quality, metadata, master/reference data, security, privacy and lifecycle management, and the ability to translate these requirements into platform capabilities.
Experience operating within a federated data model, enabling business-owned data products while maintaining enterprise standards, interoperability and governance.
Demonstrated experience leading large multidisciplinary teams and strategic vendors across onshore, offshore and/or nearshore delivery models.
Strong financial management experience, including cloud consumption management, technology investment planning, vendor management and platform FinOps.
Proven ability to translate complex technical issues into clear recommendations and communicate credibly with CIO/CFO/executive-level stakeholders.
Strong understanding of Agile product and platform delivery models and experience managing enterprise technology portfolios involving multiple business units and dependencies.
Don’t Meet Every Requirement?
If you’re excited about working with Metrolinx but your past experience doesn’t quite align with every qualification of this posting, we encourage you to apply. You just might be the right candidate for this or other roles. We are always looking for great talent to join our team.
We invite all interested individuals to apply and encourage applications from members of equity-deserving communities, including those who identify as Indigenous, Black, racialized, women, people with disabilities, and people with diverse gender identities, expressions and sexual orientations.
Accommodation
Metrolinx is an equal opportunity employer and committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce. We are also committed to offering reasonable accommodation to job applicants in accordance with applicable legislation. If you require assistance or an accommodation at any point during the hiring process, please contact us at: 416-202-5601 or email hr.recruitment@metrolinx.com.
Application Process
All applicants must be legally entitled to work in Canada. Metrolinx will be using email to communicate with you for all job competitions. It is your responsibility to include an updated email address that is checked daily and accepts emails from unknown users. As we send time-sensitive correspondence, we recommend that you check your email regularly. If no response is received, we will assume you are no longer interested in pursuing the opportunity. Please be advised that a Criminal Record Check may be required of the successful candidate.
For Internal applicants, with the recent implementation of the Internal Mobility Policy, the internal recruitment process has changed for non-union roles. Candidates must be in their current role for 12 months prior to applying for another role and each applicant must be in good standing (not participating in a Performance Improvement Plan). Please review all provisions of the policy before submitting your application.
Should it be determined that any background information provided is misleading, inaccurate or incorrect, Metrolinx reserves the right to discontinue with the consideration of your application.
We thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those selected for further consideration will be contacted.
WE ARE AN EQUITABLE AND INCLUSIVE EMPLOYER.
#LI-MM3
