Staff Data Implementations Engineer (Contract Or Perm)

Lookahead; Sydney; On-site; AUD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hours

Canberra office visits

Job summary

Lookahead is seeking a Staff Data Implementations Engineer to join a small Australian team. You will own end-to-end data pipelines for Australian clients, bringing their data into our platform and ensuring reliability, security and cost efficiency.

The role blends client-facing responsibilities with hands-on work using Python, SQL, Databricks, AWS and Azure. You will lead technical discussions, mentor peers, and shape the data platform’s direction while collaborating with a US-based team on a

Qualifications

• 8+ years in data engineering with end-to-end ownership of large-scale pipelines.
• Must be Australian Citizen eligible for NV1 clearance; active clearance preferred.
• Experience as the lead technical voice with clients, ideally government, translating requirements into architecture.
• Hands-on cloud engineering in AWS and/or Azure; building solutions, not just administering them.
• Security minded with data governance experience and supporting security reviews or accreditation (IRAP or Essential Eight a plus).
• Ability to set technical direction, mentor others, and clearly explain impact.
• Familiarity with graph databases, entity resolution, or trade and supply chain data a plus.
• Experience in a startup or scale-up building a large-scale data platform.

Responsibilities

• Build and customise data pipelines for Australian clients.
• Bring client data into the platform and ensure pipelines are reliable, secure and cost-effective.
• Lead client meetings as the technical voice and translate requirements into architecture.
• Mentor junior engineers and set technical direction for the team.
• Work hands-on with Python, SQL, Databricks and cloud services (AWS/Azure).

Skills

Data pipelines

Client facing

Mentorship

Technical leadership

Tools

AWS

Azure

Databricks

Python

SQL

OpenSearch

PostgreSQL

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Datadog

Job description

Staff Data Implementations Engineer (contract or perm)

The role

You'll be part of a small Australian team within a US based tech company that uses AI to map global supply chains. You'll build and customise data pipelines for Australian clients, bring their data into the platform, and keep those pipelines reliable, secure and cost effective. The best part about this role is the mix: you're the technical expert in client meetings, and you're still hands‑on, working mainly with Python, SQL, Databricks and AWS, with some Azure.

About you

• 8+ years in data engineering, with end-to-end ownership of large-scale pipelines, from design through to running them in production
• Must be Australian Citizen eligible for NV1 clearance, active clearance preferred
• Experience as the lead technical voice with clients, ideally government, translating their requirements into architecture
• Hands‑on cloud engineering in AWS and/or Azure, building solutions, not just administering them
• Security minded, with experience in data governance and supporting security reviews or accreditation (IRAP or Essential Eight a plus)
• You set technical direction, mentor others, and can clearly explain your own impact versus the team's
• Familiarity with graph databases, entity resolution, or trade and supply chain data a plus
• experience in a startup or scale-up building a large scale data platform

The offer

• Contract role based in Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne with Canberra office visits
• Join a high performing team working on a platform with global impact
• Flexible hours built around client needs, not a rigid 9 to 5
• Modern stack and tooling: Python, SQL, Databricks, OpenSearch, Postgres, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Datadog, AWS and Azure