Associate Director, Technology (Database)

About Affinity

Affinity is pioneering new frontiers in AdTech by building privacy-first advertising infrastructure that helps publishers maximize monetization and enables advertisers to reach the right audiences beyond walled gardens. Operating across 10+ markets in Asia, the US, and Europe, with a team of 500+ professionals, Affinity continues to innovate at scale in the global AdTech ecosystem.

Role: Associate Director, Technology

Location: Mumbai (Malad)

Role Overview

We are looking for an Associate Director, Technology to lead and scale our data platforms and database ecosystem supporting high-volume AdTech workloads. This role will own architecture, performance, reliability, and evolution of our data lake, OLAP systems, and real-time streaming pipelines, while partnering closely with Product, Analytics, and Engineering leadership.

Key Responsibilities

1. Technology & Architecture

• Own architecture of large-scale data platforms supporting OLAP and real-time analytics.
• Strong expertise in SQL, data modeling, and performance tuning.
• Hands-on experience with ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, MySQL.
• Build and scale big data pipelines using Apache Spark and Hadoop.
• Design real-time streaming systems using Kafka.

1. Leadership & Team Management

• Lead and mentor senior data and platform engineers.
• Drive engineering best practices and architectural standards.
• Act as a technical escalation point and partner with cross-functional stakeholders.

1. Platform & Cloud Operations

• Own availability, performance, and reliability of data platforms.
• Implement monitoring, capacity planning, and incident management.
• Ensure data security, governance, and cost optimization.
• Enable analytics and reporting via Power BI and BI tools.

1. Strategic Contribution

• Translate business needs into scalable data solutions.
• Define and execute the data platform roadmap.
• Drive platform modernization and technology adoption in high-scale environments.

1. AI capabilities

• Basic understanding of AI and Gen AI concepts
• Experience on inculcating AI process in team

Required Skills:

• 8+ years of experience in database, data platform, or backend engineering, with leadership exposure.
• Strong hands-on expertise in:
• SQL, data modeling, and OLAP concept
• ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, MySQL
• Apache Spark (batch & streaming)
• Hadoop ecosystem and data lake architectures
• Kafka and real-time data pipelines
• Experience supporting large-scale, high-throughput, data-intensive systems (AdTech/MarTech preferred).
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, performance tuning, and fault tolerance.
• Exposure to BI tools (Power BI preferred) and analytics enablement.
• Proven ability to lead teams, influence architecture decisions, and work with senior stakeholders.