Data Architect / Technical Lead – Founding Data Hire

Exec Capital Recruitment; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Exec Capital is seeking a founding data engineer in London to own the data warehouse, ELT architecture, and governance for a first-party signal platform. You will define the behavioural data schema and lead end-to-end data infrastructure.

You will collaborate with editorial and social teams to embed data collection into daily content operations and scope future hires as the data function grows. This is a founder-level opportunity with high impact.

Qualifications

• Architect data warehouse and ELT architecture from scratch (BigQuery/Snowflake) and ingestion.
• Strong SQL and Python; integrate third-party APIs at scale.
• GDPR-aware data governance: retention, consent, deletion as a product feature.
• Set technical direction; explain schema decisions to non-technical stakeholders.
• Founding/senior data engineer or technical lead building data platforms from zero.

Responsibilities

• Architect cloud data warehouse and ELT pipeline strategy with daily ingestion from major platforms.
• Define the behavioural signal schema across sources and cohort dimensions.
• Establish data governance with provenance, retention windows, consent flags, audit trails.
• Embed data collection into editorial/social workflows without slowing content ops.
• Curate validation benchmarks for future modelling and AI initiatives.
• Define the data function's technical roadmap and hiring plans.

Skills

Architecture-level experience

SQL

Python

Data governance

Judgement and communication

Founding senior data engineer

dbt

Airflow

Dagster

Tools

BigQuery

Snowflake

Fivetran

Airbyte

custom ingestion

Job description

Reporting to: Founder/CEO

Search led by: Exec Capital

The Opportunity

Our client is a London-based youth-culture media group whose brands reach an audience of more than 120 million people every month, producing work for 75+ global brand partners. The business is building the next layer of its offering: a first-party behavioural data engine that turns what its audience watches, joins and responds to into structured, consented signal the foundation for the audience-intelligence work that follows.

This is a genuine founding appointment. You would be the company's first senior data hire, owning the architecture and technical direction of the data engine end-to-end, with a direct line to the founder/CEO. There is no technical layer above you on this project the design decisions are yours to own and defend.

The Role

You will design and stand up the data warehouse and ELT architecture, define the behavioural signal schema, and set the data governance model the business will be judged on by clients and investors. You'll work with editorial and social teams to embed data collection into daily content operations, and prepare the datasets that future intelligence and modelling work including a planned AI venture will be built on. You may also scope and hire supporting engineering resource as the function grows.

Responsibilities

What You'll Do

• Architect the cloud data warehouse and ELT pipeline strategy: daily automated ingestion from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other platform APIs, Google Analytics, newsletter/CRM and commerce sources
• Design and evolve the behavioural signal schema spanning attention, engagement, sentiment, intent, trend-adoption dynamics and outcomes with consistent cohort dimensions across sources
• Set data governance as a product feature: retention windows, consent flags, provenance and audit trail design that will stand up to client and investor scrutiny
• Work with editorial and social teams to build data collection into the daily content operation without slowing it down
• Curate a validation benchmark from historical campaign stimulus-to-outcome pairs, structured for future modelling work
• Define the technical roadmap for the data function, including scoping any future hires

Qualifications

What We're Looking For

• Architecture-level experience a track record designing, not just implementing, data warehouse and ELT architecture from scratch (e.g. BigQuery or Snowflake with Fivetran, Airbyte or custom ingestion, and dbt)
• Strong SQL and Python, with deep experience integrating third-party APIs, including handling auth, rate limits, pagination and schema drift at scale
• Data governance expertise — genuine command of GDPR-aware design: retention, consent and deletion architecture, treated as a product feature rather than an afterthought
• Judgement and communication — able to set technical direction independently, explain schema decisions to non-technical stakeholders, and defend governance design to legal and client audiences
• Prior experience as a founding or senior data engineer, data architect, or technical lead standing up a data platform from zero is important

Nice to have: social or media analytics experience, dbt semantic modelling, orchestration tools such as Airflow or Dagster, and a genuine interest in the data foundations behind machine learning and simulation.

Why Apply

• Founding scope — you architect the asset the next phase of the company is valued on, with no legacy systems or technical debt to inherit
• Real scale from day one, with pipelines feeding channels reaching 120 million+ people monthly
• A direct line to the founder and to the company's key technical and commercial decisions
• Genuine growth path as the data and technical function builds out around you
• Exposure to a founder-led business building a genuinely new, technically ambitious product line