Data Platform Captain (Technical manager)

If you’re excited by the idea of owning and shaping an entire Data Platform function, this role is worth a look.

The company is undergoing a major shift: moving from a traditional data setup into a fully modern, scalable, AI‑driven platform. They’re now building the leadership layer that will define how data is engineered, governed, and leveraged across the organisation.

They’re searching for a Technical Data Engineering Manager with deep, hands‑on experience in data streaming especially Kafka as this will become a foundational backbone across all products and internal systems.

What makes this compelling is the trajectory. As the platform scales, this position is designed to evolve into Head of Data Platform , with full ownership of the division: strategy, architecture, team growth, and cross‑functional influence.

What you'll do:

• Lead a team of senior data, infrastructure and backend engineers creating a supportive environment where people can grow and do their best work
• Collaborate closely with Product, Data Production, and key internal customers to define and deliver on a clear vision and roadmap with shared alignment on metadata, taxonomy requirements, and data format standards
• Support the team in architectural and technical decision‑making, while not being expected to contribute code regularly - today that means driving the build‑out of a governed, central data distribution layer that replaces the current mix workarounds and legacy pipelines
• Own data integrity and discoverability end‑to‑end. You'll establish monitoring across the full value chain and drive a continuously updated Data Catalogue that makes data trustworthy and discoverable across the organization, resolving terminology conflicts between product and data teams through a single source of truth
• Build strong relationships with internal stakeholders and partner with data engineers and architects to develop scalable internal interfaces

Your Skills

• Leadership experience leading cross‑functional, product‑oriented engineering teams
• Solid grasp of backend development, ideally with Java or Python, and both relational and NoSQL databases
• Solid understanding of data warehouse technologies and ETL pipelines including experience migrating away from legacy, bespoke pipelines toward governed, self‑serve data delivery platforms
• Strong understanding of distributed system design, particularly microservice architectures with hands‑on experience building event‑driven, fan‑out distribution systems (Kafka , Redpanda , Confluent )
• Familiarity with Data Governance Tools, Processes and Practices incl. data catalogues, Schema versioning, data contracts, and schema registry patterns
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative mindset - you build strong relationships with senior engineers, product peers, other engineering managers, and various stakeholders
• Familiarity with building applications and infrastructure on AWS