Associate Product Owner, Data Platforms

Associate Product Owner, Data Platforms

Description

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 130 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org

ITS Vice Presidency Context:

The Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) enables the World Bank Group to achieve its mission of ending extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet by delivering transformative information and technologies to its staff working in over 150+ locations. For more information on ITS, see this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=VTFGffa1Y7w

Unit Context: as applicable:  
 
The ITS Data Office (ITSDO) is the central entity within the World Bank Group’s Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) department responsible for enabling data, AI, information, and knowledge capabilities across the institution. It comprises four Units focused on platforms & tools, product & service delivery, enablement and governance. The office plays a pivotal role in advancing the Bank’s digital transformation, supporting business domains with trusted data, information and AI capabilities, and fostering a culture of responsible innovation.  

The Platforms & Tools Unit is responsible for building, integrating, and continuously modernizing the foundational technology infrastructure that powers data, AI, archives, and knowledge services across the World Bank Group. The unit leads the rationalization and simplification of legacy systems, and modernization towards platforms that are scalable, secure, interoperable, and designed for self-service and adoption. The unit plays a critical role in enabling enterprise-wide transformation by delivering data environments, digitization infrastructure, and open knowledge repositories that are AI-ready and aligned with business needs.   

Duties and accountabilities: 

Platform Architecture & Engineering

• Build & Maintain Azure Databricks Enterprise Data Platform that enable federated data product development across lines of business.
• Develop Platform as Product solutions to enable WBG Data Engineering and Data Analysts to consume data platform in self-service manner.
• This role will be the technical anchor for data platform, setting standards, enforcing governance, controlling costs, and enabling data engineering teams to deliver reliably at scale.
• Design, build, and maintain a production-grade Lakehouse architecture on Azure Databricks, aligned to medallion (bronze/silver/gold) design patterns.
• Administer and govern Unity Catalog: managing catalogs, schemas, external locations, storage credentials, lineage, and fine-grained access controls.
• Own the configuration and lifecycle of Databricks SQL Warehouses, clusters, and compute policies for both interactive and production workloads.
• Establish and maintain dbt as the transformation framework: project structure, model standards, testing, documentation, and CI/CD integration.
• Rationalize legacy Data Platform into modern Data Management solutions. 

Cost Optimization & FinOps

• Continuously monitor and optimize the cost of Databricks clusters, SQL Warehouses, and dbt workloads through right-sizing, autoscaling, spot/photon usage, cluster policies, and workload isolation.
• Implement chargeback/showback tagging, usage dashboards, and budget guardrails to drive accountability across teams.
• Recommend and enforce cost-efficient engineering practices without compromising performance or reliability.

Data Governance, Quality & Management

• Define and enforce data governance best practices: access management, data classification, PII handling, auditing, and regulatory compliance.
• Implement data quality frameworks (tests, contracts, validation, monitoring, alerting) to ensure trusted, reliable data products.
• Champion data management best practices across cataloging, metadata, lineage, retention, and lifecycle management.

Collaboration with Agile Teams

• Participates in agile ceremonies (e.g., sprint planning, stand-ups) to align data engineering efforts with project goals
• Collaborates with data scientists, analysts, and product owners to understand data requirements and deliver solutions that drive business value
• Analyzes and maintains comprehensive documentation for data processes,  pipelines, and systems to facilitate knowledge sharing 
• Develops the documentation of engineering processes and workflows to promote knowledge sharing and compliance

Cloud Compute & Cloud Security

• Design and manage secure cloud networking for the platform: VNet injection, private endpoints/Private Link, firewalls, and connectivity to source and downstream systems.
• Partner with cloud infrastructure and security teams to ensure the platform meets enterprise security and compliance standards.

Production Operations & Reliability

• Own the operation of data platforms in production: monitoring, incident response, capacity planning, upgrades, and SLA management.
• Build automation and observability (CI/CD, IaC, alerting, logging) to ensure resilient, self-healing platform operations.
• Lead root-cause analysis and drive continuous improvement of platform stability and performance.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to data platform engineers, setting standards and reviewing designs and code.
• Engage with data vendors: evaluate tools and capabilities, manage relationships, and negotiate technical requirements.
• Lead and execute RFP processes: defining requirements, evaluating vendors, and guiding selection decisions.
• Serve as a trusted advisor, delivering best-practice recommendations to data engineering and analytics teams.
• Gain exposure to enterprise-scale AI applications and real-world development impact
• Support development, testing, and deployment of AI/ML models and platform components. 
• Implement and support monitoring, observability, and operational reliability practices 
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and contribute to agile development processes

Selection Criteria

Educational Qualifications and Experience:

• Typically requires a Master's degree with 5 years of experience or a Bachelors Degree with a minimum of 7 years of relevant experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience. 
• 5-10 years of experience in building Data Platforms, Platform Engineering discipline. 
• Experience with coding projects, hackathons, or open-source contributions is a plus 
• Demonstrated interest in building scalable and production-ready systems
• Strong proficiency with dbt, Azure Databricks, SQL Warehouses, and Lakehouse architecture.
• Proven track record in cost optimization, data governance, and data quality at enterprise scale.
• Solid understanding of cloud networking and platform security.
• Demonstrated ability to run production data platforms and lead cross-functional initiatives.
• Excellent communication, leadership, and vendor-management skills.

Certification Requirements:  

• SAFe or other relevant Agile certifications.
• Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate
• Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) or AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
• Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-900) or equivalent
• Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer Associate, or AWS Certified Data Engineer

Required Skills/Abilities:

• Deep hands-on expertise with Azure Databricks, Unity Catalog, and Lakehouse (medallion) & Data mesh architecture in production environments
• Strong proficiency building and governing transformation frameworks with dbt (testing, DataOps)
• Proven experience operating Databricks SQL Warehouses, clusters, and compute policies for interactive and production workloads
• Demonstrated ability to optimize platform cost (right-sizing, autoscaling, cluster policies, FinOps) without compromising performance
• Solid understanding of data governance and data quality practices : access control, data classification, PII handling, lineage, and validation frameworks
• Working knowledge of secure cloud networking on Azure (VNet, Private Link/private endpoints, firewalls) and enterprise security/compliance standards
• Experience running production data platforms:  monitoring, incident response, capacity planning, SLA management, using observability and IaC/CI-CD automation
• Ability to engage vendors and support RFP processes, and to provide technical guidance and best-practice recommendations to data engineering teams
• Strong problem-solving, analytical thinking, and effective cross-functional communication in agile team settings
• Familiarity with cloud architecture and automation across Azure (AWS/GCP a plus)

WBG Culture Attributes:

1. Sense of urgency: Anticipate and quickly respond to the needs of internal and external stakeholders.
2. Thoughtful risk-taking: Challenge the status quo and push boundaries to achieve greater impact.
3. Empowerment and accountability: Empower yourself and others to act and hold each other accountable for results.

World Bank Group Core Competencies

The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

Learn more about working at the World Bank and IFC including our values and inspiring stories.