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 &…