Lead Data Engineer - AWS & AI | AI&Data | Sydney

Deloitte Services; Sydney; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Retail discounts

Wellbeing leave

Volunteer days

Flexible working options

Parental leave

Return to work support package

Job summary

Deloitte Services in Sydney seeks a Lead Data Engineer to spearhead AI & Data initiatives. You will own design and delivery of AI-enabled data platforms, guide teams, and ensure scalable, secure, and production-ready solutions for clients in Australia.

You will lead not only technical delivery but also mentoring and knowledge sharing, working with AWS services and data models while collaborating with clients to shape innovative data-driven outcomes.

Qualifications

• 4-6 years’ experience in software, data or AI engineering.
• Strong software engineering background, with significant experience building data-intensive platforms
• Strong Python engineering experience in production environments
• Experience designing and building data models and data services for operational systems
• Hands-on experience with AWS services such as DynamoDB, Aurora, Neptune and Glue
• Experience with data ingestion, downstream consumption, semantic modelling, ontology design and lineage
• Experience managing reference data and metadata-driven platform design
• Experience curating or preparing high-quality datasets for testing, evaluation or operational controls
• Experience working in complex distributed systems with strong quality and automation practices

Responsibilities

• Designing & Delivering AI & Data Solutions – Design and deliver AI-enabled applications, agentic workflows and production-grade data solutions that are reliable, scalable, secure and maintainable.
• Owning Technical Delivery – Apply AI-first delivery methods to lead the successful delivery of a workstream, making sound technical decisions and driving outcomes from design through deployment and operation.
• Raising Engineering Quality – Review code and designs, champion engineering standards, and lift the quality of the solutions and teams around you.
• Client Collaboration – Collaborate with client stakeholders and delivery teams to shape requirements, evaluate options and translate them into practical technical solutions.
• AI-Enabled Delivery – Build in testing, CI/CD, observability, security and responsible AI practices from the start, using AI-first engineering methods to improve quality, consistency and delivery outcomes.
• Coaching & Knowledge Sharing – Support the growth of less experienced engineers through mentoring, pairing, code review and sharing proven engineering patterns, practices and reusable assets.

Skills

Python

Data platforms

Production systems

AI-enabled products

Distributed systems

Tools

DynamoDB

Aurora

Neptune

Glue

Job description

Job Requisition ID:42128

Lead Data Engineer - AWS & AI | AI & Data| Sydney

We are seeking a Lead Data Engineer to join our AI & Data practice. Based in Sydney, this role sits on our Engineering pathway, a career pathway designed for engineers who want to grow their impact through technical excellence. You'll own critical workstreams, guide technical decisions, and help teams deliver AI, data and agentic solutions that are secure, scalable and production-ready.

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and experiences and recognise that careers don't always follow a straight path. If you meet most of the points below, we'd like to hear from you.

About the team

Our AI & Data team comprises more than 500 specialist practitioners across Australia, each of whom are constantly curious and excited about combining their business acumen and technological expertise to create AI and data-centric solutions that help solve complex problems and transform or reinvent our clients’ business.

Our AI & Data team work with public and private sector clients, helping them design and implement world-leading solutions and capabilities. From solving air and ground transport network issues through our industry-first Optimal Reality digital twin solution, to bringing automation capabilities to vaccine rollout programs and helping our clients move to a sustainable world, we are the partner of choice for our clients and our alliance vendors.

Our technology relationships with market-leading vendors such as AWS, Microsoft, Google, Databricks, Snowflake and Informatica enable our practitioners to be at the forefront of new and emerging capabilities and to deliver our suite of services at scale. We are consistently recognised as leaders in Cloud, Data, Analytics and AI, including in the latest analyst reports.

What will your typical day look like?

You’ll be hands-on across design and build, accountable for the quality of what your team ships.

• Designing & Delivering AI & Data Solutions – Design and deliver AI-enabled applications, agentic workflows and production-grade data solutions that are reliable, scalable, secure and maintainable.

• Owning Technical Delivery – Apply AI-first delivery methods to lead the successful delivery of a workstream, making sound technical decisions and driving outcomes from design through deployment and operation.

• Raising Engineering Quality – Review code and designs, champion engineering standards, and lift the quality of the solutions and teams around you.

• Client Collaboration – Collaborate with client stakeholders and delivery teams to shape requirements, evaluate options and translate them into practical technical solutions.

• AI-Enabled Delivery – Build in testing, CI/CD, observability, security and responsible AI practices from the start, using AI-first engineering methods to improve quality, consistency and delivery outcomes.

• Coaching & Knowledge Sharing – Support the growth of less experienced engineers through mentoring, pairing, code review and sharing proven engineering patterns, practices and reusable assets.

Enough about us, let’s talk about you.

You may have all or some of the following skills and experiences:

• 4-6 years’ experience in software, data or AI engineering.

• Strong software engineering background, with significant experience building data-intensive platforms
• Strong Python engineering experience in production environments
• Experience designing and building data models and data services for operational systems
• Hands‑on experience with AWS services such as DynamoDB, Aurora, Neptune and Glue
• Experience with data ingestion, downstream consumption, semantic modelling, ontology design and lineage
• Experience managing reference data and metadata‑driven platform design
• Experience curating or preparing high‑quality datasets for testing, evaluation or operational controls
• Experience working in complex distributed systems with strong quality and automation practices

Nice to have:

• Experience working on AI-enabled products or workflows
• Exposure to agentic AI systems, including the data structures and evaluation approaches needed to support them
• Experience using AI coding assistants such as Claude Code or GitHub Copilot
• Familiarity with spec‑driven development
• Familiarity with event‑driven architectures and cloud‑native engineering practices

Applicants must hold working rights in Australia to apply.

Why Deloitte?

At Deloitte, we focus our energy on interesting and impactful work. We’re always learning, innovating and setting the standard; making a positive difference to our clients and our society. We put coaching at the heart of what we do, helping our people grow their careers in any direction - whether it be up, moving into something new, or even moving across the world.

We embrace diversity, equity and inclusion. We have a diverse collection of people from different backgrounds, with different experiences, gender identities, abilities and thinking styles. What binds us together is a shared commitment to value everyone's perspective and to cultivate inclusion; so that our work environment is a safe space we can all belong.

We value in‑person connection with our clients and our colleagues. We offer several ways for you to work flexibly so that you can serve your clients, stay connected with your team, and manage your personal priorities.

We help you live and work well. To support your personal and professional life, we offer a range of perks and benefits, including retail discounts, wellbeing leave, paid volunteering days, twelve flexible working options, market‑leading parental leave and return to work support package.

By applying for this job, you’ll be assessed against the Deloitte Talent Standards. We’ve designed these standards so that you can grow in your career, and we can provide our clients with a consistent and exceptional Deloitte employee experience globally. The preferred candidate will be subject to background screening by Deloitte or by their external third-party provider.