Open to opportunities

Joseph Bird

@josephbird

Message

Engineering leader building AI-ready, governed data platforms at scale.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I seek leadership roles building AI-ready, governed data platforms where I can scale teams, embed compliance-by-design, and accelerate ML production.

I am an engineering leader with 15+ years designing and operating end-to-end data platforms that power analytics, product, and ML for millions of users. I lead large, distributed teams and have built AI-ready foundations—feature stores, experiment pipelines, and model serving—while embedding governance, data quality, lineage, and access control into infrastructure by design.

My career spans regulated fintech and large consumer streaming environments where I've owned platforms processing petabytes daily, established SLAs and observability, and treated data platforms as products to accelerate internal velocity. I mentor and coach leaders, hold a patent, and am open to advisory and board roles focused on AI, fintech, and consumer platforms.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Executive Director – Data & AI Platform

Current

Disney Streaming

Jan 2019 - Present (7 years 2 months)

Led a 90+ engineer organization owning the end-to-end data lifecycle for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, operating a platform processing 50+ PB daily for 200M+ subscribers and embedding governance, quality, and ML readiness by design.

Data Platform Data Governance Spark MLOps Observability

Vice President – Strategist

Goldman Sachs

Jan 2015 - Jan 2019 (4 years)

Built end-to-end data platforms for Marcus and Apple Card, embedding data quality, access control, and compliance to meet banking regulations and accelerate analytics for product, risk, and finance teams.

Data Platform & Compliance Data Quality Data Warehousing SQL

Unit Head

NYC Office of Management & Budget

Jan 2012 - Jan 2015 (3 years)

Directed forecasting models and real-time data pipelines optimizing allocation of $1.5B+ budgets across agencies and delivered $200M in grant recovery while building dashboards for executive decision-making.

Forecasting Data Pipelines Budgeting SQL Dashboards Stakeholder Management Public Policy

Co-Founder & CTO

Scout It Out Sports

Jan 2011 - Jan 2012 (1 year)

Co-founded and built an ML-powered analytics and content delivery platform, designing cloud APIs and data architecture from scratch to support analytics and distribution.

Machine Learning API Design Cloud Architecture Data Engineering Python Scalability Product Development

Education

Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework

Pace University

Master of Public Administration, Public Administration

2011 - 2012

Grade: Summa Cum Laude

Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) completed at Pace University with summa cum laude honors in 2012.

Pace University

Bachelor of Arts, World Trade, Language & Diplomacy

2007 - 2011

Grade: Cum Laude

Bachelor of Arts in World Trade, Language & Diplomacy completed at Pace University with cum laude honors in 2011; included study abroad at Università degli Studi di Ferrara in Italy.