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We sat down with Adriano Sanges, Engineering Manager of Data, to talk about his path from traditional Big Tech roles to rebuilding Didomi's data infrastructure, what managing a team across five different cultures actually looks like day-to-day, and what's on the horizon for data operations at Didomi.
Keep reading to learn more about his work, what the privacy industry has taught him, and how he thinks about building for the long term.
What does being the Engineering Manager of Data at Didomi entail?
Adriano oversees Didomi's data function, spanning data engineering and analytics. He works with stakeholders across the company, from product and RevOps to external customers who use the dashboards in the Didomi console.
His team isn't tied to a single product area, which means a significant part of his role involves deciding what to work on, when, and coordinating across teams to ensure data efforts go where they're most needed.
We are not a product team. We span over the entire company and have internal stakeholders and external stakeholders.
- Adriano Sanges, Engineering Manager of Data at Didomi
Before joining Didomi in January 2022, Adriano spent seven years in data roles at large American companies such as Bank of America and Walmart, working out of Dublin. The work was technically demanding, but the scope was narrow, focusing on technical delivery while the strategic and organizational aspects were handled by someone else.
He joined with a detailed plan for how Didomi's data infrastructure should work. Within a year and a half, nearly all of it was in production. The new infrastructure went live in January 2024 and has been the foundation of the team's work since.
When data meets regulation
Adriano has spent his entire career in data, but privacy looked very different before Didomi. At most of the teams he worked for, it was not a significant consideration:
Apart from a small percent of the time at Walmart where we had to be HIPAA compliant, no one in my career ever cared about privacy.
-Adriano Sanges, Engineering Manager of Data at Didomi
At Didomi, privacy is central to how data work gets done. Building the new infrastructure meant working alongside the DPO and Chief Privacy Officer from the start, with legal and compliance considerations shaping technical decisions at every stage. It was a new way of working for Adriano, and one that has stayed with him.
Adriano's understanding of the legal framework is now deep enough that he often knows the answers before he consults the team, but he follows the process anyway, because the right governance habits matter as much as the technical ones.
Managing across borders and backgrounds
Adriano's data team is spread out across six different countries and time zones: Italy, Estonia, the United States, France, Slovakia and Slovenia. Managing those differences means adapting how feedback is given, how work is explained, and how decisions are communicated. What works well for one person does not always work for another.
Data engineering is often associated with systems, pipelines, and infrastructure. The human side of the work is just as present. Getting the most out of a distributed team means paying close attention to how people think, what they respond to, and how they work together:
As long as there are people involved, the work is never purely technical.
- Adriano Sanges, Engineering Manager of Data at Didomi
Four years ago, the company was considerably more French-centric than it is today, and while the tech team has always been the most internationally diverse side of the business, over time, the rest of the organization has moved in the same direction.
A company that adapts with you
When Adriano joined Didomi, he was based in Ireland. The role came with the understanding that relocation was possible down the line, and he eventually moved back to his hometown in Naples, Italy.
The process on Didomi's side was straightforward. Around three weeks of administrative work to change contracts, and that was it.
- Adriano Sanges, Engineering Manager of Data at Didomi
Adriano has worked remotely since the COVID pandemic, but describes Didomi as the first organization in which that is reflected in its structure. Rather than defaulting to office habits carried over online, teams are built around clear written communication and processes that do not depend on people being in the same room or time zone.
It doesn't come naturally if you're used to working in an office. The instinct to walk over and ask someone a question isn't there anymore. What replaces it has to be intentional.
- Adriano Sanges, Engineering Manager of Data at Didomi
In practice, the workplace culture allows people to work in ways that fit around employees' life responsibilities without affecting output. Adriano manages a team across six different countries, coordinates with stakeholders across the business, and still finds the model workable, which is something he does not take for granted, having come from more traditional environments.
What's next for Adriano and his team?
Data quality is a core part of what Adriano and his team work on, and the focus right now is to go team by team across the business and understand where the gaps are. From there, the team will bring that data into one place, making it more consistent and easier to work with across the company.
Earlier this year, Adriano worked with colleagues to broaden access to AI tools across Didomi. Better data foundations will make the work more coherent. Teams will be able to connect to fewer tools and get more out of them, rather than each team building its own workflow in isolation:
The original intention was always to make people more productive and more independent. Better data governance is what makes that possible in practice.
-Adriano Sanges, Engineering Manager of Data at Didomi
For Adriano, the work ahead is an extension of what he has been building toward since he joined Didomi. If you are interested in being part of that work, check out our open positions.
