About the role
About
the Role We're building a new team to own Radiant's internal data infrastructure, executive analytics, and AI capabilities. As the Technical Lead (Director), you'll set the technical direction for
the team—architecting the data platform, owning the AI strategy, and ensuring we make the right build-vs-buy decisions. This is a player-coach role. You'll lead technical direction and mentor engineers, but you'll also go hands-on when needed. You'll own the AI vendor evaluation process, which is critical given our ITAR/EAR security
requirements—standard AI tools don't work out of the box, and we need someone who can navigate the landscape and find compliant solutions.
What You'll Do Set technical direction: Define the architecture for our data platform (Databricks, Fivetran, dbt) and AI tooling; make build-vs-buy decisions Own AI strategy: Evaluate and select AI platforms (chatbot, enterprise search, specialized tools) that meet security
requirements; lead RAG evaluation in H2 Lead technical delivery: Ensure the ION-Ramp integration, dashboards, and AI tools are built correctly; hands-on when needed Mentor engineers: Set the technical bar for hiring; develop the DevOps and Data Platform Engineers on
the team Interface with SWE: Coordinate with the Software Engineering team on shared Databricks infrastructure; ensure operational and engineering workloads coexist Navigate security: Work with IT/Security to ensure all technical decisions meet ITAR/EAR compliance
requirements
What We're Looking For Required 10+ years of software or data engineering experience, including hands-on AI/ML work Deep understanding of the AI landscape—you can evaluate vendor tools, understand RAG architectures, and advise on build-vs-buy tradeoffs Data platform architecture experience—you've designed and built systems on Databricks, Snowflake, or similar Strong technical leadership—you can set direction, mentor engineers, and interface effectively with non-technical stakeholders Hands-on ability—you're a player-coach who can write code when needed, not just draw diagrams Preferred Background in hardware, aerospace, or defense—you understand manufacturing data, supply chain systems, and the complexity of physical product development Experience shipping AI products or building AI capabilities at a company (not just research) Experience with data integration tools (Fivetran, Airbyte, dbt) Experience in regulated environments (SOC 2, FedRAMP, ITAR) Familiarity with BI/analytics tools (Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Databricks dashboards)
