Senior Director, Data Platform and Cloud Services at Samba TV

New York, New York, United States

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Not SpecifiedCompensation

Senior (5 to 8 years), Expert & Leadership (9+ years)Experience Level

Full TimeJob Type

UnknownVisa

Media, Advertising, TechnologyIndustries

Requirements

12+ years in data platform/infrastructure roles, with 5+ years in senior leadership
Proven track record of leading large-scale platform transformations
Experience building production embedding systems and vector databases
Experience with TV/media analytics, AdTech, or similar high-volume data environments
History of building and scaling teams of 20+ engineers
Deep expertise in modern data architectures (data mesh, lakehouse, streaming-first)
Proficiency with stream processing (Kafka, Flink, Spark Streaming)
Proficiency with modern data warehouses/lakes (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery)
Proficiency with workflow management (Airflow, etc)
Proficiency with container orchestration (Kubernetes, EKS/GKE)
Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
Proficiency with ML platforms (MLflow, Kubeflow, SageMaker)
Exceptional communication skills to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences
Strategic thinking with ability to balance long-term vision

Responsibilities

Define and execute a transformative vision for data platform architecture that scales to billions of daily events
Partner with CTO and engineering leadership to align platform strategy with business objectives
Drive adoption of next-generation technologies including vector databases and ML-powered analytics
Build strategic roadmaps that balance innovation with operational excellence
Lead the evolution from current state to a modern, cloud-native data platform with embedded ML/AI capabilities
Design fault-tolerant, multi-region architectures supporting real-time and batch processing
Build and maintain the services, platforms, and frameworks enabling Samba’s data engineering teams
Architect embedding-based systems for content understanding, viewer similarity, and semantic search
Build infrastructure for vector storage, indexing, and retrieval at scale (billions of embeddings)
Champion best practices in data governance, security, and compliance (GDPR, CCPA)
Evaluate and implement emerging technologies (streaming architectures, lakehouse patterns, ML platforms)
Design platforms for embedding generation, storage, and serving at scale
Implement vector search capabilities for real-time recommendations and content discovery
Build infrastructure supporting multimodal embeddings (video, audio, text metadata)
Enable self-service ML capabilities for data scientists and analysts
Establish MLOps practices for embedding model lifecycle management
Build and mentor a world-class team of platform engineers, ML engineers, and architects
Foster a culture of innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning
Establish clear career paths and growth opportunities for team members
Drive cross-functional collaboration with data science, product, and engineering teams
Establish SLAs and monitoring frameworks for internal and external clients
Provide observability tools for Data Engineering and Data Science, including tools to enforce data quality
Lead vendor relationships and technology partnerships
Drive automation and self-service capabilities for internal customers

Skills

Vector Databases

Machine Learning

Cloud Native

Real-Time Processing

Batch Processing

Embeddings

Semantic Search

Data Governance

GDPR

CCPA

Streaming Architectures

Lakehouse Patterns

Multi-Region Architectures

Samba TV

Audience measurement and analytics for smart TVs

About Samba TV

Samba TV provides audience measurement and insights for the television industry, focusing on the smart TV market. Their technology is integrated into 35 million TVs globally, allowing them to collect and analyze extensive viewership data. This data helps advertisers, broadcasters, and content creators understand viewer behavior and improve their advertising and content strategies. Samba TV's audience measurement system is significantly larger than traditional methods, offering more accurate data. The company operates on a business model where clients pay for access to their data and analytics, ensuring privacy compliance and giving viewers control over their data sharing. The goal of Samba TV is to enhance the television viewing experience through detailed insights and measurement services.

San Francisco, CaliforniaHeadquarters

2008Year Founded

$44.4MTotal Funding

EARLY_VCCompany Stage

Data & Analytics, Consumer SoftwareIndustries

201-500Employees

Benefits

Flexible Work Hours

Remote Work Options

Professional Development Budget

Mental Health Support

Company Equity

Employee Discounts

Risks

Increasing competition from Roku and Amazon challenges Samba TV's market share.

Privacy-focused regulations may increase compliance costs for Samba TV.

Shift towards ad-free streaming services could reduce demand for advertising insights.

Differentiation

Samba TV partners with 20 smart TV brands, embedding technology in 35 million TVs.

Proprietary multi-source panel is 100 times larger than traditional measurement systems.

Offers comprehensive audience measurement and actionable insights for advertisers and content creators.

Upsides

Growing demand for cross-platform measurement solutions boosts Samba TV's market potential.

Acquisition of Semasio enhances capabilities in privacy-compliant contextual targeting.

Partnerships with digital audio platforms expand audience insights across media channels.

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