Description

Assistant Division Director
(Posting #415-25)

The Department of Children and Families’, Office of Data Management and Reporting is seeking a qualified individual to fill an Assistant Division Director position.  This position is located in Trenton, NJ. This position may be eligible to work remotely for up to two days in a calendar week.

DEFINITION: Under the direction of a Division Director, Deputy Director, or other senior official in a state department or agency, directs the staff and activities of an operational unit responsible for providing general administrative and/or fiscal management, program policy and planning services, or delivering a variety of social, medical, assistance, health care, and other services to a specific client population; does other related duties as required.

Under the leadership of the Director of Data Management & Reporting, the incumbent will be expected to lead NJ DCF’s enterprise data platform, governance, and analytics enablement so DCF staff, providers, and partners can rely on well-governed, secure, and timely data to improve outcomes for children and families. The Assistant Director implements the cloud data strategy (Azure or AWS), supports pragmatic data governance, and manages a multidisciplinary technical team while partnering closely with program leadership to deliver high-value data products, reporting, and research support.

Key Responsibilities

• Play an active role in the implementation of NJ DCF’s Information Management Strategy
• Implement and maintain an enterprise data catalog and data quality program with clear SLAs and published data product documentation.
• Design and scale reusable data products (subject area marts, semantic models, APIs) for reporting, dashboards, statutory submissions, and research partnerships; improve data-sharing while protecting privacy.
• Ensure compliance with federal/state mandates and departmental policies.
• Guide responsible use of AI and automation to achieve efficiency and productivity gains (e.g., document processing, retrieval-augmented search, forecasting) with guardrails for privacy, bias, and transparency; partner with Legal/IT Security.
• Lead, coach, and develop an inclusive technical team (data engineers, platform/DevOps, data modelers, data quality/metadata stewards); run hiring, performance management, and career pathways.
• Partner with program/policy leaders to translate business needs into technical roadmaps and deliverables; manage intake/prioritization and a transparent portfolio.
• Participate in vendor selection and contract management; enforce delivery standards, SLAs, and total cost of ownership discipline, as needed.
• Champion observability, documentation, and change management across the data ecosystem; track and report outcomes and platform health metrics.
• Promote effective people management; provide coaching and mentoring to all levels of staff within the Office of Data Management & Reporting.
• Keep current with changes in federal and state statutes and regulations affecting division operations, programs, or services; then advise the Director of potential impact.
• Establish liaison and maintain cooperative working relationships with other private and public agencies whose operations or services impact the department.
• Represent DMR and/or DCF at meetings, conferences, or other gatherings.
• Manage the work operations and/or functional programs and prepares and signs official performance evaluations for staff while effectively recommending the hiring, firing, promoting, demoting, and disciplining of employees.
• Build and maintain a healthy and professional work environment for the team.
• Perform other additional duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in information systems, computer science, data science/analytics, engineering, or related field (Master’s preferred).
• 10+ years in data engineering/analytics/platform roles (public sector experience a plus), including 5+ years managing technical teams.
• Hands-on experience architecting and operating cloud data platforms on Azure and/or AWS; strong SQL plus a scripting language (Python preferred); experience with CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code.
• Proven data governance practice (policy, stewardship, catalog/lineage, data quality).
• Working knowledge of AI/ML concepts and responsible AI practices; ability to scope practical, ethical use cases in government.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills; ability to translate between technical and non-technical audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experienced in leading data teams in child welfare, behavioral health, Medicaid, or broader health and human services domains.
• Familiarity with federal/state reporting cycles, provider data, and inter-agency data-sharing agreements.
• Experience with open data programs and API design for public-sector data sharing.
• Experience with Databricks, Spark, dbt, Terraform, Kubernetes, or equivalent modern data stack components.

REQUIREMENTS: Applicants must meet one of the following or a combination of both experience and education. Thirty (30) semester hour credits are equal to one (1) year of relevant experience.

Ten (10) years of professional experience in a public or private organization involved in programs providing either social/community, medical/health, rehabilitation/education, or vocational/occupational services to a specific client population (physical, intellectual, or developmental disability, juvenile offenders, socially/economically disadvantaged, etc.), three (3) years of which shall have been in a supervisory capacity.

OR

Ten (10) years of professional experience as an administrator responsible for planning, budgets, and administration of programs in a large public or private agency, three (3) years of which shall have been in a supervisory capacity.

OR

Possession of a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university; and six (6) years of the above-mentioned professional experience, three (3) years of which shall have been in a supervisory capacity.

OR

Possession of a master’s degree from an accredited college or university in a field relevant to the position; and five (5) years of the above-mentioned professional experience, three (3) years of which shall have been in a supervisory capacity.

RESUME NOTE: Eligibility determinations will be based upon information presented on the resume only. Applicants who possess a degree from a college or university outside the United States must provide an evaluation of one’s transcripts from a recognized evaluation service at the time of submission by the above closing date. Failure to do so may result in your ineligibility.

SALARY:  $140,000.00-$159,000.00  (Commensurate with education and experience)

TO APPLY: You must submit a cover letter and resume as a single PDF document, saving the file by your Last Name, First Name. Please indicate in your cover letter the Posting # and where you found this job opportunity.  Send the file to:

Email:  Job.Posting@dcf.nj.gov

LICENSE: Appointees will be required to possess a driver's license valid in New Jersey only if the operation of a vehicle, rather than employee mobility, is necessary to perform the essential duties of the position. Familiarity with implementation science and organizational and program development preferred.

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS:  The Department of Children and Families provides many employee benefits, including but not limited to:

• Alternative Workweek Program*
• Deferred Compensation
• Health, Dental and Life Insurance
• Flexible and Health Spending Accounts
• Pension
• Telework*
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness
• Benefit Leave (Vacation, Sick, Administrative Leave)
• 13 Paid Holidays

*Pursuant to Department policy, procedures and/or guidelines

PUBLIC SERVICE LOAN FORGIVENESS: As a prospective employee of the State of New Jersey, you may be eligible for federal loan forgiveness programs and state repayment assistance programs. For more information, please visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website at StudentAid.gov/PSLF.

SAME APPLICANTS: If you are applying under the NJ “SAME” program, your supporting documents (Schedule A or B letter), must be submitted along with your resume by the closing date indicated above. For more information on the SAME Program visit their Website at: https://nj.gov/csc/same/overview/index.shtml, email: CSC-SAME@csc.nj.gov, or call CSC at (609) 292-4144, option 3.

UNIT SCOPE: Any appointments made from postings which involve movement between unit scopes may result in a forfeiture of rights to any promotional list in a former unit scope.  A complete list of DCF unit scopes can be found here.

RESIDENCY: Effective 9/1/11, NJ PL 70 (NJ First Act), requires all State employees to reside in New Jersey, unless exempted under the law, or current employees who live out-of-state and do not have a break-in service of more than 7 calendar days, as they are “grandfathered.”  New employees or current employees who were not grandfathered and who live out-of-state have one year after the date of employment to relocate their residence to New Jersey or request an exemption.  Current employees who reside in NJ must retain NJ residency, unless he/she obtains an exemption.  Employees who fail to meet the residency requirements or obtain an exemption will be removed from employment.

AUTHORIZATION TO WORK: Selected candidates must be authorized to work in the United States according to the Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Regulations. This position does not offer visa sponsorship now or in the future.

The Department of Children and Families is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and is committed to fostering a respectful and inclusive work environment which reflects the diversity of the state we serve.