Director, Data & AI

At CHAMP, we are redefining the technology used by Motor Vehicle Agencies and their stakeholders. We do so with innovative, cloud-based software that enhances efficiency, security, and interoperability. Our solutions replace outdated processes with modern, scalable platforms, enabling organizations to operate with greater speed and accuracy in an increasingly digital world.

Director, Data & AI

Location: Cleveland, OH (Onsite – 4 days in office)

Department: Product Engineering

Reports To: Vice President of Product Engineering

Travel: < 10%

Sponsorship: This position is not eligible for Visa Sponsorship

Relocation: This position is not eligible for Relocation

Your Impact

We’re looking for a Director of Data & AI to lead and scale our data and artificial intelligence capabilities across the company. You'll partner closely with product, engineering, operations, and executive leadership to transform raw data into AI-powered products, trusted business intelligence, and seamless data migrations that support our customers and users.

This is a technical leadership role for someone who thrives at the intersection of hands-on execution and cross-functional collaboration. You'll work alongside product and executive stakeholders to help shape the data and AI roadmap, then lead and grow a team to bring it to life. You'll report directly to the VP of Product Engineering and play a key role in delivering outcomes across Data products, LLM-powered features, agentic AI solutions, internal BI, and data migrations.

What You Bring

· You'll have meaningful visibility and influence across teams, contributing to how data and AI capabilities are prioritized and built.

· You'll partner with product and leadership to help define how AI and data are embedded across our offerings.

· You'll lead a talented team in a modern cloud data environment, driving best practices in data engineering, ML, and AI.

· Your execution will directly influence product decisions, client outcomes, and company growth.

We welcome candidates from all backgrounds. If you meet most of the qualifications below, we encourage you to apply, even if you don’t meet every single one.

What You’ll Do

· Partner with product and executive leadership to contribute to the data and AI roadmap, translating strategic priorities into technical plans and leading your team to execute against them.

· Manage and grow a team of data engineers, analysts, software engineers, and AI/ML practitioners, providing mentorship, technical direction, and career development, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.

· Lead the full lifecycle of AI product development, spanning ML models, LLM-powered features, and agentic solutions, from problem framing and requirements through deployment and scale, delivering intelligent capabilities that create measurable value for our customers.

· Drive the development of customer-facing data products, including configurable dashboards, custom reporting, and data marts that enable customers to access, explore, and act on their data within the product experience.

· Drive the maturity and reliability of our cloud data warehouse and internal BI platform, enabling self-service analytics that empower non-technical stakeholders to explore data and make informed decisions independently.

· Oversee delivery of data pipelines, ingestion patterns, and operational data flows, building reusable, trusted data assets and a consistent source of truth across the organization.

· Collaborate with stakeholders to define, document, and standardize KPIs and metrics, ensuring a consistent and trusted source of truth (e.g., "active customer," cycle time, churn, model performance).

· Champion data quality and governance, defining policies, lineage, access controls, and metadata standards ensuring secure and compliant data practices appropriate for government and enterprise customers.

· Oversee data migrations, ensuring accuracy, integrity, and minimal disruption to operations and clients across complex environments.

· Serve as a trusted partner to business stakeholders across the company, translating ambiguous business questions into clear technical requirements and delivering actionable insights.

· Communicate progress, insights, risks, and recommendations clearly to both technical teams and executive or non-technical stakeholders.

· Travel domestically <10%

Requirement Qualifications

· Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field; advanced degree a plus.

· 6 years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, analytics, or AI/ML roles, with at least 2 years in a leadership or management capacity.

· Proven track record of building and shipping AI or Data products in a GovTech, SaaS, or enterprise environment, driving the full lifecycle from problem framing through deployment.

· Experience working with LLMs and building LLM-powered applications, including prompt engineering and evaluation, with exposure to agentic frameworks and orchestration patterns (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, Strands).

· Proven experience leading data warehouse and BI platform initiatives, with a track record of enabling self-service analytics for non-technical stakeholders.

· Strong proficiency in SQL and Python for data analysis, automation, and pipeline development.

· Experience with relational databases (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB, DynamoDB).

· Familiarity with AWS services (e.g., Lambda, DMS, S3, SageMaker, Bedrock) to support data pipelines, migrations, and model deployment.

· Experience leading or executing data migrations across complex, multi-system environments.

· Strong understanding of data governance, security, and compliance requirements — particularly in regulated or government-adjacent industries.

· Excellent communication skills with the ability to present data and AI concepts clearly to diverse technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

· Hands-on experience with ETL/ELT processes and data warehousing concepts, including dimensional modeling and data mart design (e.g., star/snowflake schemas).

· Experience with data orchestration and transformation tools (e.g., dbt, Prefect, Airflow).

· Familiarity with MLOps and LLMOps practices including model monitoring, versioning, and evaluation pipelines.

· Experience with infrastructure-as-code concepts (e.g., Terraform) and cloud-native data architectures.

· Experience working with government clients or in compliance-sensitive environments (e.g., FedRAMP, SOC 2, HIPPA, GDPR).

· Familiarity with Agile environments and workflow tools (e.g., Jira).

· Demonstrated success mentoring and developing data professionals and contributing to team standards, documentation, and code reviews.

Why You’ll Like Working Here

Competitive Salary

Annual Bonus Potential

Health, Dental & Vision Insurance

Unlimited PTO Policy

Matching 401K with immediate vesting

Subsidized Lunches at our Cleveland Headquarters

Fast Paced work environment in a growth company

Newly Renovated Office Space

Salary Range

The expected salary range for this position is $170,000 to $220,000 annually . This is a good faith estimate, and final compensation may vary based on experience, skills, and geographic location.

We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, including veterans and individuals with disabilities. If you need accommodations during the application or interview process, please let us know. We’re here to help.

By joining CHAMP Titles, you will be an integral member of our team with many opportunities for personal growth and upward mobility in a growing organization. We have a great culture that is flexible, collaborative and welcoming.