Leader for Data and AI @ FK Bodø/Glimt
Bodø/Glimt are hiring a Leader for Data and AI and this is another one of those job adverts that genuinely brings a smile to my face (two and counting if you are keeping score). Partly because of the way the role is described, but partly because it exposes something I've always known to be true but never had much concrete evidence of in football.
To take a step back. I've talked publicly several times about how clubs that have been successful over long periods of time have been successful primarily because they have been well run, and secondarily because they have been evidence based with access to high quality data. This might seem a strange thing to say given what my role as a senior data leader, and where I've been successful in my career, but the truth is you can have a brilliant data function in a badly run organisation. Equally you can be well run and have a bad data function. But if you take two clubs that are equivalent in every other way, the one that's well run will eat the lunch of the one that's badly run but has the good data team, over and over again.
Bodø/Glimt are an organisation that has been successful relative to their resources for so long and in such a apparently systematic way that the external narrative almost demands a hidden hand. Some super brain algorithm behind the scenes spitting out "buy this player, sell that player", so powerful and objective that the success is inevitable. But then you read this job advert and it straightaway says "we have built our success through brave choices, systematic work and a clear strategy". And here's the important bit: "data is the next arena for this". They're saying it as clearly as you could get it: data has had a minimal amount to do with their ability to punch above their weight. The counterpoint is the clubs that have had data functions for a long time, the early adopters, who have won almost nothing. Glimt are coming right out and saying: we're just better run than other people and the barrier to others doing it is: it takes a long period of time and a lot of consistency. I'm going to write a full post about that.
So, other than all that, why do I like this advert so much? I believe a job advert should answer four things. What you'll do on a day to day basis. If you do those things well, what success looks like for the organisation. Therefore what skills you need to be successful. And where you sit in the organisation and how you'll be supported from all sides. This one addresses all four really nicely.
On the role itself, you'll be "taking technical and strategic ownership of data and AI" in the club. It explicitly says you'll work closely with an engaged leadership team who are curious about these things. A beautiful framing for anyone going into an organisation at senior level. (In fact when I look for jobs myself, this is one of the key elements I push on, what is the attitude of the senior leadership to data, because that makes one of the biggest differences between personal success and failure.)
Concretely, they're building what they describe as their own data lake, and it's going to handle both the football data, first party and second party, as well as the commercial and fan data. It's seems clear that in the first instance this is going to be primarily a data engineering role, and a hands-on one. It actually says they need to choose a cloud platform (Azure, AWS or Google - those sales guys have already started their engines I imagine) and a data platform (probably Databricks). And this is very different kind of uncertainty from the "Python or R" red flag you see in a lot of job adverts. This is saying: you going to be the one the skills to make the choice for the club, you're going to choose it and then you're going to go and build it.
Touching briefly on the fact that this role covers both football and commercial data, that's quite unusual. In my experience they've been separated in clubs, but it's never been particularly clear that separation is a good idea. And there's so much to like about the way they talk about data. They say they're going to build a culture of data sharing so that insight doesn't stop with you but "spreads through the club and makes everyone a bit wiser" (my translation, the advert is in Norwegian). There's another line about "buying what's standard, building what gives you competitive advantage and using partners where you need speed and capacity". Again a beautiful framing of a set of principles that clearly define the role. I just love it!
There are of course practical experience requirements, but as I said this is more about setting up a data engineering function, almost a head of data engineering role at the start. It's a senior role within the club, part of the leadership group reporting to the CEO, but given the size of the club it's clearly very much a hands-on role focused initially on building the data lake, with the opportunity to build a small team around you over time. The way it's written, none of this is in place, which probably can't quite be 100% true, but it's expressed as completely greenfield.
The role requires presence in Bodø and they assume you either live there or want to move there, which will obviously restrict some people quite a lot but in keeping with the bold and confident way they present themselves. Closing date is the 12th of September.
Really, everything about this brought a smile to my face 😊
