Lead Data Engineer

Vend; Helsinki; Hybrid; EUR 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Vend is seeking a Lead Data Engineer to bring our data strategy to life within a product organization. You will ensure data products are architecturally sound, documented, and highly usable for downstream consumers, not just technically present.

You will balance deep technical reviews with coaching product teams, driving data maturity across our four core verticals and collaborating with central platform teams to keep standards uniform.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in event-driven architecture, including Kafka designs, CDC, schema evolution, and both streaming and batch patterns.
• Experience navigating cloud data platforms (GCP/BigQuery or Snowflake) with data quality frameworks and observability tools.
• Natural educator and coach who enjoys scaling modern data practices across product teams.
• Thrives in federated data ownership models (Data Mesh) and guides cross-functional peers without direct authority.
• Strong English communication to translate technical choices into business value.

Responsibilities

• Ensure data products are architecturally sound and well documented.
• Coach product teams and align on data practices across verticals.
• Balance deep technical reviews with cross-functional collaboration.
• Own the lifecycle and evolution of data products, including versioning and deprecations.

Skills

Event-driven architecture

Kafka

GCP/BigQuery

Snowflake

Data Mesh

SQL/Observability

English communication

Tools

Kafka

GCP/BigQuery

Snowflake

Job description

The Opportunity in a Nutshell

• A collaborative data professional who loves mentoring teams, setting clean architectural standards, and transforming data into highly reliable products.


• A hands‑on Lead Data Engineer with broad organizational scope, bridging the gap between high‑level data strategy and day‑to‑day product engineering.


• Event‑driven architectures (Kafka, CDC), schema management, and modern cloud data platforms like GCP/BigQuery or Snowflake.


• Vend, home of FINN, Blocket, Tori, Oikotie, DBA & Bilbasen, where millions of people across the Nordics connect to find what they need, whether it’s a job, a home, a way to move, or a fresh start.


• Join us in our Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen or Krakow office with the flexibility to work 3 days per week remotely.


• This is your chance to make a profound impact by scaling our Data Mesh strategy across Vend's four core product verticals: Mobility, Real Estate, Jobs, and Recommerce. You will enjoy extensive professional growth, a culture built on mutual trust and psychological safety, and the autonomy to shape data maturity across a major Nordic technology ecosystem.

Who are you?

• Deep expertise in event‑driven architecture, including Kafka topic design, Change Data Capture (CDC), schema evolution, and both streaming and batch patterns.


• Practical experience navigating cloud data platforms (such as GCP/BigQuery or Snowflake) alongside data quality frameworks and observability tools.


• A natural educator and coach who enjoys introducing modern data practices to product teams, meeting them where they are with patience and clarity.


• Thrives in federated data ownership models (like Data Mesh) and feels comfortable guiding, aligning, and influencing cross‑functional peers without needing direct authority.


• Effective communicator in English, which is our primary working language, enabling you to clearly translate technical "how‑to" choices into meaningful "why" business value.

What’s the job like?

As a Lead Data Engineer, your mission is to bring our data strategy to life within your product organization. You will ensure our data products are architecturally sound, thoroughly documented, and highly usable for downstream consumers, not just technically present.

Your Typical Week

You will balance your time between deep technical reviews and collaborative human alignment. One day you might be diving into event schemas and Kafka topic designs; the next, you’ll be coaching a product team through their very first data product or collaborating with central platform teams to keep standards uniform.

Current Projects & Focus Areas

• Championing the Data Operating Model: Serve as the core checkpoint for our Data Operating Model within your vertical, tracking progress against company‑wide data product coverage goals.


• Team Enablement: Guide teams end‑to‑end, from initial event emission through our golden paths to a discoverable product in our data catalog.


• Lifecycle Management: Own the healthy evolution of your organization's data products, smoothly managing versioning, breaking changes, and deprecations.

Collaboration & Stakeholders

You will report directly to the CTO of your vertical while operating under the CPTO’s overarching data mandate. You will collaborate closely with peer Lead Data Engineers across Vend, our central platform infrastructure teams, and the product managers and engineers within your specific organization.

What Success Looks Like

• After 6 months: You have built trusted relationships across your vertical, assessed current data product gaps, and successfully established initial quality and observability baselines.


• After 1 year: You have proven the success of our data strategy by delivering data products that actively drive revenue, optimize user experiences, or reduce time‑to‑insight across your vertical.

What this role is NOT (to give you total clarity)

• Not a platform engineer: You won’t be building Kafka clusters or maintaining Snowflake infrastructure—our dedicated central platform team handles that heavy lifting.


• Not an analytics engineer: You won’t own dbt models or build dashboards. Your focus is ensuring the foundation feeding the analytical layer is rock solid.


• Not a people manager: This is an individual contributor (IC) role focused on broad organizational influence, mentorship, and technical leadership rather than administration.

Want to get a feel for our culture and what drives us? Take a peek behind the scenes at our Career Page!

GOT YOUR ATTENTION? Let us hear from you!

Make sure to apply by 10th August 2026. Please note that due to the summer/holidays, we will process all applications in mid‑August.

QUESTIONS?

David Johansson Rad, Senior Manager, Project Management, is happy to provide information about the daily work and answer any questions you may have about the role. David is best reached via [e-mail] (Do note he will be on leave, so expect some delays).

For questions regarding the recruitment process, please feel free to reach out to our Senior Talent Acquisition Partner, Clayton Don Corda, at [e-mail].