Director of Data, Automation, and Intelligence Services

Director of Data, Automation, and Intelligence Services 3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars Portland, ME Full-time University of New England 145 reviews Full-time The Director of Data, Automation, and Intelligence Services provides strategic and operational leadership for the university's data engineering, business intelligence, systems integration, reporting, and artificial intelligence capabilities. This role manages an ITS team responsible for the design, development, and ongoing operation of data infrastructure, analytics platforms, automated workflows, AI-powered solutions, and the integrations that connect the university's enterprise application ecosystem. The Director, reporting to the VP/CIO, serves as a primary liaison between Information Technology Services (ITS) and the university's academic and administrative units, driving data quality, platform integration, analytical insight, and intelligent automation across institutional operations. The Director of Data, Automation, and Intelligence Services promotes strong cross-ITS collaboration and consistent practices that increase data reliability, reduce manual effort, and deliver meaningful decision-support capabilities for students, faculty, and staff. The Director is expected to be a visible, trusted technology leader across the institution, bringing both strategic vision and hands-on technical credibility to the role. About The University of New England UNE is Maine's largest private university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study-abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible online offerings. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to positively impact a world full of challenges. We are the state's top provider of health professionals and home to Maine's only medical and dental colleges, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care programs, and nationally recognized programs in the marine sciences, the natural and social sciences, business, the humanities, and the arts. Benefits Overview Multiple health and dental plan options, plus vision coverage. Up to 8% retirement plan match. Generous leave time, including vacation, sick, and personal time, and 12+ holidays per year. Educational benefits : UNE tuition waiver for employees, spouses, and domestic partners For more information about our outstanding benefits, please visit: UNE Benefits Overview Responsibilities Data Engineering and Infrastructure Leadership Lead the strategy, architecture, and roadmap for the university's data infrastructure, including data warehouses, data lakes, pipelines, and integration frameworks, ensuring alignment with institutional mission and operational priorities. Oversee the design, development, and maintenance of scalable, reliable data pipelines and ETL/ELT processes that support reporting, analytics, and AI workloads across the institution. Ensure data infrastructure meets availability, performance, and recovery standards, and that environments (production, test, development) are properly maintained and documented. Establish and enforce standards, documentation, and procedures for data engineering, pipeline management, warehouse design, and data quality validation. Monitor and manage data infrastructure performance trends, proactively planning for capacity needs tied to enrollment growth, new programs, institutional data volume expansion, or platform changes. Partner with enterprise application, infrastructure, and security teams to ensure that data flows and integration patterns are secure, compliant, and operationally sound. Maintain a current understanding of the data engineering and analytics market, including emerging platforms, cloud data services, and higher education technology trends, to inform institutional planning and investment decisions. Systems Integration and Middleware Operations Serve as the senior technical authority for the university's systems integration environment, overseeing middleware platforms, API management, and data exchange infrastructure that connects enterprise applications. Direct the design, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of system integrations, APIs, and automated data exchange processes, ensuring reliability, security, and alignment with institutional architecture standards. Maintain and enforce integration standards including documentation of integration inventories, data flow diagrams, protocol specifications, and dependency maps across all connected systems. Ensure integration environments are properly managed across the full lifecycle, including version control, change management, testing, and release coordination with affected application teams. Lead the identification and remediation of integration failures, data synchronization issues, and middleware performance bottlenecks, and establish proactive monitoring practices to reduce reactive incidents. Partner with the Director of Enterprise Applications and Platform Services to ensure that integration design supports platform transitions, application onboarding, and decommissioning activities. Develop and promote reference architecture standards for integration design, API governance, and data exchange, ensuring that new and existing systems conform to institutional architectural principles. Business Intelligence, Reporting, and Analytics Lead the development and continuous improvement of the university's business intelligence and reporting capabilities, ensuring that institutional data is accessible, accurate, and actionable for decision-makers across academic and administrative units. Oversee the design, development, and delivery of reports, dashboards, and self-service analytics tools that support institutional research, operational monitoring, accreditation, and strategic planning. Establish and maintain standards for report development, data visualization, semantic data models, and BI platform governance to ensure consistency, reliability, and appropriate access across the institution. Partner with functional and academic leaders to understand reporting needs, prioritize development efforts, and ensure that BI capabilities are co-designed with the users they serve. Champion a culture of data-informed decision-making across the institution by improving data literacy, promoting self-service analytics, and reducing reliance on ad-hoc manual reporting. Ensure that business intelligence outputs are aligned with the university's data governance policies, including data definitions, access controls, and privacy requirements. Oversee the maintenance and accuracy of the data warehouse and related analytical data stores that underpin reporting and BI workloads. Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Automation Lead the university's applied AI strategy within ITS, including the evaluation, development, and deployment of AI-powered solutions that enhance institutional operations, student success, research, and academic and administrative efficiency. Direct the design and delivery of AI models, machine learning pipelines, natural language processing tools, and intelligent automation workflows that are grounded in institutional data and aligned with university priorities. Establish governance frameworks for responsible AI development and deployment, including model documentation, bias review, data privacy considerations, and explainability standards. Collaborate with institutional stakeholders, including academic units, student services, finance, and HR, to identify high-value AI and automation opportunities and translate those opportunities into delivered capabilities. Oversee the integration of AI capabilities into enterprise application platforms, ensuring that AI-powered features are operationally sustainable, well-tested, and aligned with platform architecture. Partner with the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET) and academic units to evaluate emerging AI tools, promote responsible adoption, and contribute to the university's broader AI literacy and governance initiatives. Maintain a working knowledge of the AI vendor landscape, open-source ecosystems, and regulatory environment as they pertain to AI use in higher education, and use that knowledge to inform institutional investment and policy decisions. Data Governance, Quality, and Compliance Serve as a key ITS leader in the university's data governance program, ensuring that data engineering, integration, reporting, and AI practices align with institutional data policies, standards, and stewardship responsibilities. Establish and enforce data quality standards across pipelines, warehouses, and analytical outputs, including validation rules, lineage documentation, and data certification practices. Ensure that all data handling practices comply with applicable regulatory requirements, including FERPA and HIPAA, and that access controls, retention policies, and privacy safeguards are implemented and maintained. Partner with the ITS security team to ensure that data infrastructure, integration endpoints, and AI systems are configured and maintained in accordance with institutional security standards and risk tolerance. Develop and maintain business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities for data infrastructure and integration platforms, ensuring operational resilience in alignment with institutional requirements. Maintain authoritative documentation of the university's data assets, including data dictionaries, lineage maps, ownership registers, and integration inventories. Technology Evaluation and Architecture Oversight Lead or participate in formal technical reviews of proposed new data, integration, analytics, and AI tools, assessing architectural fit, total cost of ownership, vendor stability, data governance implications, and alignment with institutional technology standards. Serve as a primary ITS technical voice in procurement processes, RFP development, and vendor demonstrations for data, analytics, integration, and AI acquisitions, ensuring that technical requirements are clearly defined and evaluated. Maintain a formal technology review process in partnership with ITS leadership that ensures no new data or integration platform is adopted without documented architectural review and approval. Conduct and document total cost of ownership analyses for current and proposed platforms, accounting for licensing, staffing, maintenance, and long-term sustainability, to inform institutional investment decisions. Evaluate shadow IT and unsanctioned data or analytics tool usage and develop strategies to rationalize or transition users to approved and supported alternatives. Vendor and Contract Management Manage vendor relationships and contracts specifically related to data platforms, integration middleware, BI tools, and AI services within the Director's portfolio. Ensure vendor performance meets defined SLAs, risk requirements, institutional strategy, and budget parameters for platforms under this portfolio. Lead structured vendor performance reviews on a regular cadence, documenting outcomes and escalating unresolved issues to ITS leadership and procurement partners as appropriate. Advise institutional partners on vendor selection for data, analytics, and AI tools and ensure that procurement decisions are grounded in technical review, architectural alignment, and institutional risk tolerance. People Leadership and Team Development Lead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary team that includes data engineers, systems integration engineers, AI developers, report writers, warehouse developers, business intelligence analysts, middleware engineers, and related technical staff. Set measurable performance goals, provide ongoing feedback, and support professional development for team members at all levels. Foster an inclusive, collaborative, and outcomes-driven team culture that prioritizes service excellence, continuous learning, and responsible innovation. Champion modern practices in data engineering, AI development, integration design, and analytics delivery, and promote skill development and knowledge sharing across the team. Develop and maintain succession and cross-training plans to ensure operational continuity and reduce key-person dependencies across the data, automation, and intelligence team. Liaison Responsibilities, Proactive Planning, and Cross- ITS Collaboration Serve as a primary ITS liaison to schools, colleges, and administrative units for data, reporting, integration, and AI-related services and capabilities. Assist institutional partners with proactive planning, including the development of realistic delivery timelines, dependency mapping, and coordination of data and integration changes across teams. Promote a culture of partnership between ITS and business units, ensuring that data products, analytics solutions, and AI capabilities are co-designed with functional stakeholders. Provide regular, concise updates to leadership and governance groups on platform health, project status, risks, and decisions required. Collaborate with the Director of Enterprise Applications and Platform Services and other ITS peers to ensure seamless integration between data infrastructure and enterprise application platforms. Collaborate with the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET) as an ITS liaison to advance applied AI use, responsible automation, and data-informed decision-making across the institution. Represent ITS on relevant institutional committees, working groups, and governance bodies related to data, analytics, AI, and technology planning. The Director will collaborate closely with the Center for Emerging Technology and Institutional Reporting as well as other units. Strategy, Governance, and Continuous Improvement Collaborate with ITS leadership to develop multi-year roadmaps and annual plans for data infrastructure, analytics, integration, and AI capabilities that align with institutional strategy. Support technology and data governance processes, including platform prioritization, risk management, and investment decisions. Establish and track key performance indicators for data pipeline reliability, integration uptime, report delivery quality, AI model performance, and user satisfaction, using pragmatic and sustainable approaches. Identify and implement process improvements to reduce technical debt, streamline data operations, and enhance the reliability and value of institutional data and analytics capabilities. Develop and maintain a portfolio-level view of platform health, risk, and investment needs, and present findings to ITS leadership and governance stakeholders on a regular basis. Additional Responsibilities Participate in special projects and perform other duties as assigned by the VP and CIO. Lead select critical initiatives when needed while delegating operational and project work appropriately to ensure sustainable delivery and strong team development. Other duties as assigned. Qualifications Bachelor's degree in information technology, computer science, data science, information systems, or a related field. Significant progressive experience in data engineering, systems integration, business intelligence, or IT systems leadership, typically seven to ten years, including leadership of complex, cross-functional technology operations. Demonstrated hands-on experience designing and managing data infrastructure, including data warehouses, data lakes, ETL/ELT pipelines, and integration middleware in a large or complex organization. Experience overseeing systems integration environments, including middleware platforms, API design, and enterprise data exchange patterns. Experience leading the development and delivery of business intelligence and reporting capabilities, including BI platform administration, dashboard development, and analytical data model design. Demonstrated experience evaluating, developing, or deploying applied AI or machine learning solutions in an operational context. Experience overseeing data governance practices, data quality frameworks, and regulatory compliance requirements in a regulated environment, including familiarity with FERPA and HIPAA obligations as they apply to institutional data. Proven experience managing vendor relationships and contracts for data, analytics, integration, or AI platforms. Strong understanding of data architecture principles, integration patterns, API management, and BI best practices. Excellent communication, facilitation, and interpersonal skills, with demonstrated ability to work effectively with senior leaders, technical teams, and nontechnical stakeholders. Demonstrated ability to lead and develop teams, build trust, and foster a collaborative and inclusive work environment. Demonstrated experience developing or managing technology budgets, including operating and capital expenditures for data and analytics platforms. Preferred Qualifications Master's degree in data science, information systems, computer science, business analytics, or a related field. Experience in higher education or a similarly complex, mission-driven organization EEO Statement Summary Consistent with federal and state law and University policy, the University of New England is committed to the fundamental concept of equal opportunity for all of the members of the University community. The University prohibits, and will not tolerate, discrimination in employment, the provision of academic services or in any other area of University life based on race, color, sex, physical or mental disability, religion, age, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, ethnicity, genetic information, HIV status, or status as a veteran. Prohibited bias factors should not motivate decisions regarding students, employees, applicants for admission, applicants for employment, contractors, volunteers or participants in and/or users of institutional programs, services, and activities. Vaccination Statement (PLEASE NOTE) Employees in clinical settings must meet the State of Maine's immunization requirements for clinical activity. Additional Note This position is not eligible for H-1B visa sponsorship.