Lead Data Engineer

Lead Data Engineer
Location: West Midlands | Hybrid – 3 days per week onsite

The Role
We're looking for an experienced Lead Data Engineer to provide hands-on technical leadership within a data engineering team for a large retail brand. You'll lead the design and delivery of scalable, resilient data platforms and pipelines, set engineering standards, shape technical direction, and mentor engineers. You'll work closely with engineering, data and business stakeholders to solve complex problems and deliver high-quality data solutions.

Key Responsibilities
Lead the technical design and architecture of data pipelines, models and platform components.
Establish standards across code quality, testing, security, observability and documentation.
Drive technical discovery, design sessions, code reviews and resolution of technical debt.
Design and deliver scalable batch and streaming data solutions.
Mentor and coach engineers, supporting technical development and knowledge sharing.
Make informed recommendations on tools, technologies and architectural approaches.
Champion data quality, governance, security and compliance by design.
Collaborate with data, product and technology teams to deliver joined-up solutions.
Contribute to technical hiring, onboarding and team capability development.

What You'll Bring
Strong senior/lead-level experience in data engineering.
Deep experience with GCP, particularly BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage and Cloud Composer/Airflow.
Advanced Python and SQL skills with a strong software engineering mindset.
Proven experience building complex, scalable batch and event-driven pipelines.
Strong data modelling experience, including dimensional modelling, Data Vault or equivalent.
Experience with Dataform or similar SQL-based transformation tooling.
Understanding of CI/CD, Git, automated testing and infrastructure as code, particularly Terraform.
Experience implementing data quality, monitoring, observability and alerting.
Ability to lead architecture decisions and communicate technical trade-offs clearly.

Desirable: Spark/DataProc, Looker or similar BI tools, analytics engineering, data mesh/platform architecture, GCP cost optimisation, and experience within retail or e-commerce environments.

Benefits
Performance-related bonus
Healthcare and employer pension contributions
25 days' holiday plus birthday and bank holidays
Flexible benefits, including EV, dental, cycle-to-work and holiday trading schemes
Employee discounts and wellbeing support
Enhanced family leave and life assurance
Onsite gym membership, lunch and coffee facilities
EV charging available

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