Data Team Lead

Data Team Lead Manchester (Hybrid) £65,000-£70,000 Role Purpose An established, data‑driven fintech organisation is looking for a Data Team Lead to guide a high‑performing data engineering team. In this position, you will combine hands‑on technical expertise with people leadership to deliver reliable, scalable and actionable data solutions across the business.

Data is central to the company’s product development, customer experience, decision‑making and commercial operations. The organisation operates with a hybrid data landscape, blending mature enterprise data technologies with a modern, evolving Lakehouse‑style architecture. This approach supports large‑scale analytics, real‑time data processing and advanced data science workloads.

The successful candidate will play a critical role in shaping how the data platform evolves, strengthening analytics capabilities and maturing data engineering practices. You will ensure the business can continue to scale its use of data without compromising quality, governance or performance.

Data Team Lead Skills

• Proven experience leading and developing high‑performing, collaborative data engineering teams
• Strong background working with real‑time, event‑streaming data platforms
• Expertise in designing and managing modern data platforms, including both relational databases and cloud‑based architectures
• Advanced SQL and T‑SQL skills, with the ability to optimise queries, transformations and analytical workloads
• Experience administering Microsoft SQL Server, including upgrades, security, maintenance, backup/recovery and performance tuning
• Hands‑on experience with AWS data services covering storage, compute and managed platforms
• Skilled in building and maintaining ETL/ELT pipelines using tools such as SSIS, Matillion or similar
• Experience delivering reporting and data visualisation solutions (e.g., Tableau)
• Practical knowledge of event‑driven or streaming data ingestion and processing
• Understanding of IaC (Infrastructure as Code) and automated infrastructure management
• Strong communication skills with the ability to translate business needs into scalable technical solutions

Desirable Skills

• Experience working with lakehouse or modern cloud‑native data architectures
• Knowledge of ELT methodologies and cloud‑based transformation frameworks
• Familiarity with data lakes, object storage and large‑scale analytical data processing
• Experience working with non‑relational or semi‑structured data sources
• Understanding of modern data modelling for analytics and reporting
• Awareness of machine learning workflows or advanced analytics use cases
• Understanding of networking, security and access control within AWS or Azure
• Awareness of data governance and regulatory requirements (including GDPR)

Experience & Behaviours

• Significant experience in a senior data engineering or technical leadership role
• Passionate about modern data technologies and staying current with industry advancements
• Naturally curious, proactive and eager to continuously learn
• Enjoys designing and maintaining systems that support scalability and long‑term growth
• Collaborative and supportive, with a desire to mentor and upskill others
• Flexible and willing to work across all layers of the data stack
• Comfortable working within an Agile environment, including CI/CD practices

Robert Walters Operations Limited is an employment business and employment agency and welcomes applications from all candidates