Head of Data

Position Summary:Our partner is a large, established hospitality organization with more than 10,000 hotel rooms and 15,000 employees across a portfolio of luxury hospitality and Vacation Club brands. The company is building its first internal Product, Engineering, Design, and Data organization to take greater ownership of its customer-facing technology and digital experiences.They are hiring a hands-on Head of Data to build the Data and Guest Intelligence platform that will connect fragmented customer, membership, reservation, marketing, and digital data across the organization. The goal is to create a trusted data foundation that supports analytics, personalization, digital products, and future AI capabilities.This is not an opportunity to inherit an established Data organization or finished architecture. The ideal candidate combines Head of Data leadership with Principal-level Data Engineering or Data Architecture depth, remaining actively involved in architecture, pipelines, integrations, data modeling, quality, and technical decisions while building the team and operating model from the ground up.Experience and Education:BS in Computer Science, Information Technology, or equivalent experience/field10+ years of experience across Data Engineering, Data Architecture, platform engineering, or closely related technical data disciplines.Proven experience personally building or significantly rebuilding a modern cloud data platform from an early-stage, fragmented, or evolving environmentPrincipal-level technical depth across data architecture, pipelines, integrations, data modeling, SQL, Python, and cloud data platformsExperience unifying fragmented customer data through identity resolution, Customer 360, Master Data Management, CDP, entity matching, or golden record approachesExperience establishing practical data governance, quality, lineage, observability, security, and trusted business definitionsExperience integrating Salesforce data into broader enterprise data architectures strongly preferredExperience building data platforms within customer-centric industries such as hospitality, travel, ecommerce, retail, marketplaces, FinTech, subscriptions, or consumer technology preferredSkills and Strengths:Data ArchitectureData EngineeringCI/CDSQLPythonData PipelinesMaster Data ManagementData ContractsData ModelingData IntegrationGCPData QualityData GovernanceData LineageData ObservabilityIdentity ResolutionCustomer 360Semantic LayersBigQuerySalesforcePrimary Job Responsibilities:Define the architecture and technical direction for a new enterprise Data and Guest Intelligence platformBuild the foundation for a scalable, secure, reliable, and trusted cloud data environmentDesign how customer, reservation, membership, marketing, Salesforce, digital product, and vendor data moves across the organizationEstablish scalable data models, integration patterns, pipeline standards, data contracts, and engineering practicesLead the design and delivery of production data pipelines and integrationsConnect fragmented guest records through identity resolution, entity matching, Customer 360, and golden record approachesEstablish practical standards for data quality, governance, lineage, observability, access, privacy, security, and trusted metric definitionsCreate governed semantic definitions that provide consistent business meaning across analytics, digital products, and AI systemsRemain technically hands-on through architecture design, SQL and Python reviews, pipeline decisions, troubleshooting, and critical platform developmentEstablish CI/CD, testing, version control, monitoring, and deployment practices for Data EngineeringDefine how AI systems can safely access trusted company data through governed permissions, semantic layers, auditing, and controlled integrationsPartner with Product, Engineering, Analytics, and business leaders to prioritize data capabilities that create measurable customer and business valueRecruit, mentor, and build the internal Data Engineering organization as the platform and digital portfolio mature