Global Head of Data Platform Engineering - Managing Director

State Street Investment Management (SSIM)—formerly State Street Global Advisors (SSGA)—is seeking an accomplished senior leader to serve as the Global Head of Data Platform Engineering. This Managing Director role is critical to shaping, driving, and executing the data strategy that underpins the Investment Management division’s transformation.

As a strategic partner to the Global Head of Data, Analytics, and AI Services (DAAIS), you will oversee all data engineering work that transforms legacy data systems in a siloed environment to a unified cloud-first data platform supporting all data services provided by the COO organization to SSIM globally. You will lead global teams responsible for platform engineering, software engineering, DevOps, FinOps, tools and framework adoption related to open architecture, data computing engines, ingestion/consumption engines, data federation, and implementation of unified data governance—ensuring alignment with GTS standards and the target data ecosystem blueprint.

This is a senior global role requiring deep expertise in modern data platform architecture, platform engineering, data pipelines, real time communication engine, and modern development of unified data governance like lineage and quality controls, combined with significant leadership experience in asset management.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy

• Support SSIM’s data vision and strategy; lead end‑to‑end implementation of data platform infrastructure, data engineering, software development, modern data computing engines, catalog management, frameworks, tooling, DevOps, and FinOps.

• Lead and mentor high‑performing engineering teams across the US, India, and China—building a culture grounded in deep technology expertise and accountability (not traditional staff‑augmentation models).

• Define SSIM’s Data Platform architecture, establish engineering standards, and guide implementation and governance practices.

• Ensure an open, modular, scalable, and reusable architecture to eliminate siloed development and accelerate time to market.

• Champion engineering excellence, technical rigor, and innovation across the organization.

Engineering Excellence

• Cloud-Native Engineering: Implement a “cloud-first” ecosystem leveraging containerized and service-based architectures (e.g. Kubernetes, Microservices)

• Architecture Execution: Build and maintain a Single Source of Truth (SSOT) utilizing the separation of compute and storage to ensure scalability, interoperability, and cost efficieny.

• Data Democratization: Develop robust data federation and data sharing capabilities to enable seamless access across global business.

• Real-time Transformation: Shift the organization from batch-oriented processing to a real-time, event-driven data architecture.

• Innovation & Best Practices: Evaluate, adopt, and standardize cutting‑edge technology capabilities—including open architecture, open format, separation of storage and compute, extraction and transformation by minimizing loading, open-source computing engines for structure and unstructured data, distributed computing, and HADR.

• Quality & Performance: Ensure solutions meet the highest engineering standards through code reviews, testing frameworks, and adherence to industry guidelines.

• Collaboration & Mentorship: Build a collaborative engineering community focused on continuous learning, knowledge sharing, and professional development.

• Scalability & Resilience: Architect systems capable of supporting global business workloads with strong reliability and performance characteristics.

• Security & Compliance: Uphold stringent risk, security, and regulatory requirements; ensure robust data protection and governance.

Execution & Oversight

• Lead global data platform engineering teams with a focus on innovation, delivery excellence, and operating leverage.

• Manage major vendor relationships—including data platform providers and service partners—ensuring strong integration, service quality, and contractual outcomes.

• Oversee the full data servce capability deployment required environment from sandbox, development, QA/UAT, production, to disaster recovery across a diverse set of use cases and global users.

Qualifications

• Experience: minimum of 20 years in data technology with at least 15 years in high-scale engineering leadership.

• Hard-code background: Proven track record of personally designing and deploying global-scale data platforms using open architecture, open formats (e.g. Iceberg, Parquet) and modern stack components.

• Scale: Demonstrated ability to manage multi-jurisdictional teams (including offshore/onshore models) to deliver complex, multi-year transformation.

• Industry context: Deep understanding of the data performance requirements within institutional Asset Management or Wealth Management.

• Education: Advanced degree (MSc or PhD) in Computer Science, Data Science or related technical field is highly preferred.

• Risk excellence: Ability to embed security and controls directly into the CI/CD pipeline and data fabric.

• Expertise in Modern Data Stack (Public Cloud, Snowflake/Databricks, Spark, Kafka, Flink, and open sources solutions for structured and unstructured data).

• Deep knowledge of Open Architecture principles and data product as service delivery.

• Strong Negotiation and Political Agility to break down silos in a matrixed global environment.

• Strong understanding of the data vendor landscape and demonstrated experience adopting vendor products and open‑source frameworks to improve scale and growth.

• Fluent in English; highly detail‑oriented, results‑driven, candid, and execution‑focused.

Highly Preferred

• Prior data platform engineering leadership experience in large financial institution.

• CFA Level I or equivalent credential.

About State Street

State Street is one of the world’s largest custodian banks, asset managers, and providers of data and analytics. For more than two centuries, we have helped institutional clients safeguard investments and drive innovation across financial services.

We are committed to creating a supportive, inclusive culture and offer comprehensive benefits, flexible work programs, professional development, and community engagement opportunities worldwide.

State Street is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

About State Street

Across the globe, institutional investors rely on us to help them manage risk, respond to challenges, and drive performance and profitability. We keep our clients at the heart of everything we do, and smart, engaged employees are essential to our continued success.

We are committed to fostering an environment where every employee feels valued and empowered to reach their full potential. As an essential partner in our shared success, you’ll benefit from inclusive development opportunities, flexible work-life support, paid volunteer days, and vibrant employee networks that keep you connected to what matters most. Join us in shaping the future.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we consider all qualified applicants for all positions without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, age, disability, genetic information, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, citizenship, marital status, domestic partnership or civil union status, familial status, military and veteran status, and other characteristics protected by applicable law.

Discover more information on jobs at StateStreet.com/careers

Read our CEO Statement