Data Engineering and Platform Lead

About the role

The Data Engineering and Platform Lead will establish and steer the organisation's data engineering capability, turning business data into reliable, governed, and reusable information. This senior role blends hands‑on technical leadership with people management to shape platforms, engineering practices, data products and service standards that support reporting, analytics, automation and AI.

Key responsibilities

• Define and deliver the data engineering and platform roadmap, coordinating priorities and capacity with the IT Portfolio Manager.
• Assess the data landscape across structured, unstructured and document‑based sources, clarifying ownership, definitions, quality gaps and business importance.
• Lead the design, build, integration and operation of secure, scalable data pipelines, platforms and services on Azure.
• Create reusable data products, models and shared capabilities that support reporting, analytics, decision‑making, automation and AI.
• Establish engineering standards and repeatable practices for version control, testing, documentation, release, recovery, monitoring and support.
• Ensure data quality, integrity, freshness, lineage, security and regulatory compliance throughout the data lifecycle.
• Own platform performance, reliability, capacity, cost, technical debt and incident resolution.
• Collaborate with business partners, analytics, architecture, AI, cybersecurity and technology teams to translate requirements into reliable data solutions.
• Lead, coach and develop the data engineering team, setting clear expectations for delivery quality and accountability.
• Manage vendors and partners, ensuring delivery quality, knowledge transfer and increasing internal ownership.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Software Engineering or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically 8+ years of experience in data engineering, platform delivery or software engineering.
• Hands‑on experience establishing Azure data platforms, production pipelines and reusable data products.
• Strong expertise in data integration, transformation, modelling, quality, lineage, monitoring, security, performance, resilience and operational support.
• Experience defining engineering practices for version control, automated testing, controlled releases, documentation and incident management.
• Proven ability to create governed data products from structured and unstructured sources, including document‑based information.
• Demonstrated leadership of engineering teams, vendor management and knowledge‑transfer initiatives.
• Proactive, accountable and pragmatic mindset with excellent communication across technical and business audiences.

Required skills

• Azure data platforms
• Data pipelines
• Data integration
• Data modelling
• Data quality management
• Data lineage tracking
• Version control (e.g., Git)
• Automated testing
• CI/CD and release management
• Monitoring and alerting
• Security and access control
• Performance tuning
• Incident management
• Operational support