How To Become A Data Operations Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is a data operations director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

As it is now, data has become the name of the game in the world of business. At times, it may even seem that it is what makes the world go round, not money. Data push companies to acknowledge their limitations and to do something about those limitations. Data also help companies see where they are in the industry and where the competitors are. As such, it is important that a strong data operations director is in place.

Data operations directors manage the data-related processes in the organization. They handle the tools used to create methods in data analytics. At times, they may even be tasked to design and develop new analytics tools if the current ones are not at par with company expectations. Data operations directors also ensure that their departments collaborate well with other departments in order to address needs related to data.

If you are interested in data analytics, this is a career goal for you. You just need to have the passion for actually pursuing this and building experiences related to data processing. You should also have leadership skills and people skills to rise to the top.

ScoreData Operations DirectorUS Average

Salary

8.9

Avg. Salary $150,529

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.6

Growth rate 16%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.21%

Asian 12.67%

Black or African American 6.65%

Hispanic or Latino 9.98%

Unknown 5.20%

White 65.29%

Gender

female 31.66%

male 68.34%

Age - 47

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 47

Stress level

8.6

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.7

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.1

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a data operations director

Explore data operations director education requirements

Most common data operations director degrees

Bachelor's

65.6 %

Master's

22.9 %

Associate

4.6 %

Start to develop specific data operations director skills

Skills	Percentages
Tableau	14.71%
Visualization	12.75%
Project Management	9.47%
SAS	6.95%
Direct Reports	6.29%

Complete relevant data operations director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New data operations directors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a data operations director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real data operations director resumes.

Research data operations director duties and responsibilities

Lead account through server refresh, server monitoring and path toward server virtualization.
Champion, foster and lead an initiative to migrate core systems from proprietary UNIX to Linux.
Introduce and lead the implementation of virtualization technologies throughout the organization.
Manage large multisite datacenter environment consisting of mainframe and open systems.

Get data operations director experience

Generally, it takes 6-8 years to become a data operations director. The most common roles before becoming a data operations director include consultant, manager team lead and project manager.

Prepare your data operations director resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your data operations director resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a data operations director resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable data operations director resume templates

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