Director, Data Engineering/Machine Learning

Job Description

Xceleration is replacing a decade of legacy reporting with a modern data platform, and we need someone to own the build. Xceleration runs RewardStation, an employee recognition and incentive platform serving enterprise clients across 90+ countries and 30+ languages. Our reporting sits in two worlds right now: a 400+ report SSRS estate built on assumptions that no longer hold, and Maslow Insights, our new analytics product running on MotherDuck and SQLMesh. Your job is to run the second one and retire the first. You'll also set the architecture, manage the roadmap, and sit across from internal stakeholders who depend on numbers being right. Location : Hybrid (3 days in our Charlotte, NC office, 2 days remote from your home office). Maslow Insights — day-to-day platform strategy and operations. You own pipeline reliability, data quality, tenant isolation, and the roadmap for what it becomes next. The modern data warehouse. Today: manifest-driven extracts from RewardStation production land as Parquet in S3, feed MotherDuck, and get modeled in SQLMesh. The estate is 400+ reports, but most are unused or near-duplicates of a parent. Success looks like a small, defensible set of reports that people actually use and the discipline to retire the rest. You've built and operated production data pipelines end to end, and been on the hook when they broke Deep SQL and Python You work with AI tooling every day like Claude Code or equivalent. Experiencemanaging stakeholders who don't speak SQL Migration projects fail when someone ports 400 reports instead of asking which 40 matter SQLMesh or dbt — SQLMesh is our transformation layer SSRS, SQL Server, or comparable legacy BI migration experience Building data products that agents consume — MCP servers, semantic layers, LLM-facing interfaces Multi-tenant data platforms with real isolation requirements This is not a data science or ML role. If your background is training models rather than building the platform underneath them, this isn't the right fit. We're aggressive about AI leverage — not as a talking point, but because a team this size can't ship what we're shipping otherwise. You'll spend most of your time with internal partners across product, operations, and client services. Occasional direct client conversations, but account teams own those relationships. Every member of our team works hard to exemplify these qualities in every aspect of the work we do each day. Xceleration is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we do not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex (which includes pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and medical conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding), gender, gender identity, and gender expression, religious creed, disability (mental and physical) including HIV and AIDS, medical condition (cancer and genetic characteristics), genetic information, age, marital status, sexual orientation, military and veteran status, denial of family and medical care leave, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law.