Principal Data Engineer

Mantel; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hybrid work

Mantel AI Gateway

My Deal program

Professional development budget

Job summary

Mantel, an Australian-owned IT Professional Services consultancy, is seeking a Principal Data Engineer. You will lead data teams across enterprise-scale projects, shaping AI-ready architectures and real-time platforms.

Your role spans technical delivery, client leadership, and cross-team collaboration to accelerate value. You will drive data innovations, mentor teams, influence executive stakeholders, and contribute to pre-sales with robust data-driven proposals.

Qualifications

• Extensive consulting and technical experience influencing senior leaders (Head of/GM/CxO).
• Strong understanding of the modern data stack for AI-ready architectures.
• Deep hands-on knowledge of data ecosystems (Databricks, Snowflake) and cloud-native services.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across Mantel projects and teams.
• Lead the adoption of new data architectures to enable AI capabilities.
• Drive customer satisfaction and successful data project outcomes.
• Identify pain points and course-correct to keep projects on track.
• Support pre-sales with technical input, RFQs, RFPs, and SOWs.

Skills

Executive leadership

Databricks

Snowflake

Cloud services

RFP responses

Sales presentations

Negotiation

Ambiguity navigation

Tools

Databricks

Snowflake

dbt

Job description

Mantel is an Australian-owned IT Professional Services consultancy, focused on emerging technology to help advance our clients by leveraging AI, Digital, Cloud, Data & Security technology. We are a fully AI-enabled technology consultancy and the partner that bridges the gap between blue-sky ambition and practical steps to deliver value. Since our inception in November 2017, we have experienced remarkable growth across Australia & New Zealand and are honoured to be recognised as a Great Place to Work for 7 years in a row!

We hire smart and talented people and get out of their way. As a principle-based organisation, we have a flat structure with no hierarchy. By focusing on our five principles and not getting caught up in red tape, we trust you to get the job done!

Data&AI

Working in data at Mantel means you'll be ahead of the curve. You can align to a particular cloud platform or remain cloud agnostic, specialising in analytics, data engineering, machine learning, analytics, or data science. You'll design and scale enterprise-level, fully automated Agentic AI solutions, and speed up data platform migrations.

About the role

As a Principal Data Engineer you will:

• Be responsible for technical excellence in the delivery of our projects. Proactively seek involvement from the wider Mantel technical teams to ensure consistency in technical delivery across projects.
• Be a leader whose technical leadership and influence spans across individuals, teams, entire accounts and the broader organisations both within Mantel, our clients, partners and the broader industry.
• Have a deep focus on leadership impact (e.g. people, project team health, organisation, tech). Through this you are able to positively influence and guide Mantel teams and outcomes as a leading voice.
• Pioneer the adoption of new data architectures (e.g., unified real-time data/AI platforms) to unlock next-generation AI capabilities (e.g., large-scale GenAI, real-time reinforcement learning) across the business.
• Achieve customer satisfaction by leading data teams and delivering on data projects - sometimes concurrently - irrespective of size, complexity & ambiguity to achieve fantastic outcomes.
• Be able to quickly identify pain points in challenging projects and successfully course correct to get them back on track to achieve successful outcomes.
• Drive commercial growth by delivering projects to successful commercial outcomes, developing IP to enable unique offerings, identifying and pursuing new opportunities, persuasive conversations with clients, as well as having a meaningful impact across pre-sales initiatives, particularly with technical input and developing RFQs, RFPs, SOWs.
• Possess deep commercial awareness and help shape healthy project economics in various ways e.g. supporting resourcing decisions.
• Drive and maintain deep relationships with partners (e.g. Google, AWS, Databricks, dbt, Snowflake, Microsoft) and/or clients, supporting Mantel to be positioned as a partner & service provider of choice.
• Build Mantel’s reputation as a known expert through industry platforms, professional networks, and community events to enhance market awareness (e.g. blogs, technical talks, meet-ups etc).
• Be a leading voice shaping the capability, domain and Mantel towards further standards of excellence and quality. Be able to identify areas of focus that have the biggest impact e.g. developing individuals, developing better processes and approaches, strategic recruitment.

What you’ll need to be successful:

• Extensive consulting and technical experience with a proven track record of influencing technical and business leaders at Head of, GM, and CxO levels.
• Strong understanding of the modern data stack and its role in creating AI-ready data architectures.
• Deep hands-on knowledge of the modern data ecosystems (especially Databricks / Snowflake), with a focus on how these platforms enable enterprise-wide analytics. Technical brilliance across a broad range of cloud-native services.
• Experience working on large engagements and the ability to understand complex customer requirements and apply technology solutions to meet business problems.
• Experience in large and complex RFP responses, solution design, ability to articulate the value proposition of an overall solution.
• Proven experience and ability to own the preparation of sales presentations, proposals, documents and artefacts.
• Strong influencing and negotiation skills with the ability to handle objections and be persuasive when proposing solutions and products.
• Self-motivated and hands‑on approach, adept at navigating ambiguity to find solutions.
• You take ownership, always stepping up to help and prioritising your teammates. You're also a clear, kind communicator who makes sound decisions based on good judgement.
• At Mantel, we want you to be yourself. We trust our team members to use their professional judgment while treating colleagues and clients with respect, compassion, and professionalism in alignment with our five principles.

What you can expect from us:

• We believe in unique experiences for all. Our My Deal program allows you to tailor your yearly plan, with the support of your Leader, to decide on what’s most important to you. That might be extra professional development, extra annual leave, time to work on your side hustle, or something else completely different! One size does not fit all.
• You’ll get all the tools you need to hit the ground running including a new phone, laptop & swag.
• A true investment in your AI-first career. We are a fully AI-enabled consultancy and provide you with the tools to lead. This includes access to the Mantel AI Gateway, our secure, centralised platform with multiple AI models, plus a dedicated monthly budget and a safe environment to experiment and innovate.
• You’ll be genuinely supported by an organisation that cares about not only you but your family as well, Mantel offers Flexible Personal Leave options for those unplanned moments in life.
• We support a flexible hybrid approach to working which is guided by our principles; we trust each other to “make good choices” about the best workplace locations for the requirements of the project, role and client. This can change based on our client needs.
• We know you won’t have one job for life. At Mantel, we believe in supporting our team to take their career in a direction that aligns with their passions. We have internal opportunities across Cloud, Data, Digital, Delivery & Security.
• Our elite partnerships are a direct result of our deep platform mastery. For you, this means you'll be working alongside teams with the highest levels of technical expertise and tackling the most complex, high-profile projects on the market. Check out our partner awards and recognitions here.
• Mantel is a certified Family Inclusive Workplace, which means we are committed to improving your wellbeing at work through leading practices on flexible work, parental leave, family care and family wellbeing