Merit Group - Head of Data Engineering

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Job Overview

Key Responsibilities

Leadership and Strategy :

• Spearhead the data engineering team and establish best practices, frameworks, and engineering principles to drive team excellence and innovation.
• Develop a clear architectural vision for new projects and select the appropriate tech stack that aligns with business goals and future scalability.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, data scientists, analytics teams, and other stakeholders to understand and deliver on data needs.
  

Architecture And Development

• Architect, build, and maintain robust, scalable, and secure data platforms and distributed data processing systems.
• Drive the end-to-end development lifecycle from ideation to deployment, ensuring timely and high-quality delivery of solutions that adhere to design and security standards.
• Utilize emerging technologies to enhance data ingestion, transformation, and storage mechanisms.
  

Team Mentorship And Growth

• Lead and mentor junior and mid-level data engineers, fostering an environment of continuous learning and innovation.
• Support team members in achieving their career development goals, and provide coaching and feedback to help them grow technically and professionally.
  

Project And Technical Communication

• Communicate technical solutions, project timelines, and delivery risks in a clear and business-friendly manner to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Provide regular updates on project status, blockers, and progress to leadership and relevant teams.
  

Data Governance And Quality

• Oversee and further develop critical data initiatives including Data Discovery, Data Lineage, Data Quality, and compliance with governance frameworks.
• Ensure that all data systems and solutions are accurate, consistent, traceable, and reliable.
  

Analytical And Reporting Excellence

• Design and implement data pipelines, ETL/ELT workflows, and analytical solutions that support business intelligence and advanced analytics.
• Conduct complex data analysis, derive insights, and present actionable results to stakeholders.
  

Required Skills And Qualifications

• Proven experience (8+ years) in data engineering with at least 3+ years in a leadership or managerial role.
• Hands-on expertise in building and managing data lakes, warehouses, and real-time data processing systems.
• Strong proficiency in SQL, Python, Scala, or similar programming languages.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and modern data tools (e.g., Spark, Kafka, Snowflake, Airflow, Databricks).
• Deep understanding of data modeling, metadata management, security practices, and data governance.
• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills.
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in building scalable data platforms for machine learning or AI use cases.
• Exposure to data privacy regulations (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.) and compliance requirements.
• Familiarity with CI/CD for data engineering and infrastructure-as-code practices.