Director, Data Platform

Credit Acceptance is proud to be an award-winning company recognized both locally and nationally across multiple workplace categories. Our world-class culture is shaped by dedicated team members who are driven to succeed as professionals individually and together as a team. Backed by a strong product, exceptional people, and a stable financial foundation, we’ve grown into a leading provider of used and new car financing across the country. Our Engineering and Analytics Team Members utilize the latest technology to develop, monitor, and maintain complex practices that help optimize our success. Our Team Members value being challenged, are encouraged to express their ideas, and have the flexibility to enjoy work life balance. We build intrinsic value by partnering with all functions of our business to support their success and make strategic business decisions. We focus on professional development and continuous improvement while enjoying a casual work environment and Great Place to Work culture! We're seeking a Director of Data Platform to provide technical and architectural leadership within the data engineering organization. In this role, you'll champion to build out modern data platform cross the data space that is critical to enable business growth with AI at scale at Credit Acceptance . As a director, you'll be responsible for leading the technical vision, strategy, architecture, and execution of modern data platform, collaborating both within the data team and outside to ensure successful deliveries in production, representing the data team in various technical forums across engineering to contribute the success at the ecosystem level. The ideal candidate brings 15+ years of engineering experience with significant depth in data technology, cloud, and AI. You'll serve as both a hands-on technical leader and a strategic advisor, helping to establish robust, scalable foundations that enable innovation across the organization. Outcomes and Activities: This position will work from home; occasional planned travel to an assigned Southfield, Michigan office location may be required. However, this position is permitted to work at a Southfield, Michigan office location if requested by the team member. Develop and drive the long-term vision for enterprise data platforms and architecture, ensuring alignment with business growth and AI success Formulate and implement data platform strategy across the data space including but not limited to big data, real time, transaction/operational, governance, that transform the way how we work with data in the era of AI Oversee the architecture, design and development of scalable data platform that enable self-serve success with various use cases across the company by taking a platform and AI first approach Ensure solid production success that meets business need and speed, establish strong finops discipline with timely and insightful info to continuously optimize our economics including forecast, runtime and “showback” to the business Effectively communicate data technologies, strategies, roadmap and progress to executive leadership and stakeholders, ensuring alignment with the firm’s broader vision and goals. Stay ahead of industry trends and emerging technologies, translating them into actionable initiatives to drive innovation and maintain the firm’s market leadership. Build strong engineering organization and foster solid engineering discipline by leading with examples and mentoring team members Collaborate both with the data team and cross engineering on technology and architecture strategy and decision Exemplify technical innovation and contribute to critical system design, implementation and operation success Formulate technology and architecture decision framework that embeds engineering discipline Become an expert in the business process domain to better support the business and align technologies with the business outcomes Work with the engineering leadership team to develop and execute on the company’s technical and business strategy Conduct impact analysis to proactively identify impact of a change across multiple applications/systems Perform technical due diligence and architectural assessments of third-party technologies and solutions. Experiment and test ideas, validate assumptions against needs, reach conclusions and recommend solutions Document standards, best practices, and engineering artifacts so others can easily understand, build and maintain best in class software systems Debug the critical problems which arise in production and execute effective solutions within the application and across multiple applications/systems Lead continuous learning and process improvement activities to improve design and overall engineering practices Grow talent by participating in hiring and mentoring team members Competencies: The following items detail how you will be successful in this role. Customer Empathy: Customer Empathy is the ability to understand the perspectives, pain points, and experiences of customers. It involves actively putting oneself in the customer’s shoes, comprehending their needs and challenges, and using that understanding to provide a better, more customer-centric experience. Engineering Excellence: Engineering Excellence is about bringing great craftsmanship and thought leadership to deliver an outstanding product that delights customers and solves for the business. This involves the pursuit and achievement of high standards, best practices, innovation, and superior solutions. One Team: A One Team mindset refers to a collaborative approach across the organization, where individuals work together seamlessly, without boundaries, as a single, cohesive team. Shared goals, open communication and mutual support create a sense of collective purpose. This enables teams to navigate challenges and pursue shared objectives more effectively. Owner’s Mindset: Owner’s Mindset involves adopting a set of behaviors that reflect a sense of responsibility, accountability, strategic thinking, and a proactive approach to managing your domain. As an owner, you understand the business and your domain(s) deeply and solve for the right outcome for the domain(s) and the business. Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or closely related field of study; or equivalent work experience Minimum 10 years of software engineering experience or comparable depth of experience Experience in the leadership role overseeing technical direction of data platform, technology and architecture Expert knowledge of software engineering best practices with experience building modern data platform, product and solutions, especially in enabling AI success Expert understanding and use of modern data technology end 2 end including but not limited to source system, data integration, data acquisition, data ingestion, data transformation, data aggregation, data governance, business intelligence, data warehouse, data lake, NoSQL, object storage, streaming etc. Extensive experience with building and driving adoption of software engineering best practices Strong understanding of AI, distributed systems, cloud computing, and microservices architectures Demonstrated success in building strong engineering organization and attract/recruit/grow/retain talents Demonstrated success in building mission-critical enterprise class data platform that delivers business impact Demonstrated ability to work with business partners, cross functional team members and coach and mentor experienced team members In-depth experience with building big data real time production system that delivers business success Experienced in communicating and articulating technology subjects in the context of business and providing timely and clear communication Well versed in delivery mechanisms such as Agile Preferred: Financial services or FinTech industry experience Knowledge and Skills: Architecture