Data Engineering Lead: Databricks Platform Transformation

Unite Group; West of England; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Holiday allowance

Pension scheme

Wellbeing benefits

Family leave

ShareSave plan

Job summary

Unite Students is seeking an experienced Data Engineering Lead to join our Data & Insight team in the UK. You will lead a team of Data Engineers, provide technical direction, and drive evolution of our Databricks data platform.

You will shape data strategy, deliver trusted data solutions for analytics and reporting, and stay hands-on with complex engineering challenges while supporting agile delivery. This role offers a chance to influence technology decisions across the business and to mentor

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading Data Engineering teams in complex enterprise environments.
• Strong hands-on experience building and operating modern, cloud-based data platforms.
• Strong SQL and Python skills, with extensive experience in Databricks, Spark and lakehouse architectures.
• Strong understanding of data engineering, modelling and architecture best practices.
• Experience delivering data solutions for reporting, analytics and data science.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to balance strategic leadership with hands-on technical delivery.
• Experience working in Agile environments.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership for scalable, reliable and secure data platforms and products.
• Lead, mentor and develop a team of Data Engineers, promoting collaboration and technical excellence.
• Ensure the stability, performance and continuous improvement of critical data platforms and pipelines.
• Lead the migration from our existing data warehouse to Databricks.
• Support major transformation programmes, including our SaaS migration and wider business integration initiatives.
• Design and maintain data pipelines, models and curated datasets for analytics, reporting and data science.
• Collaborate with BI, Data Science, Architecture, Technology and business teams to deliver trusted data solutions.
• Champion engineering best practices, including testing, deployment, monitoring, documentation and code reviews.
• Support Agile delivery, from prioritisation and sprint planning through to delivery.
• Identify opportunities to improve our data platforms, tooling and ways of working.

Skills

Data leadership

Cloud data platforms

Databricks

SQL

Python

Spark

Tools

Tableau

SnapLogic

Job description

Unite Students is seeking an experienced Data Engineering Lead to join our Data & Insight team in the UK. You will lead a team of Data Engineers, provide technical direction, and drive evolution of our Databricks data platform.

You will shape data strategy, deliver trusted data solutions for analytics and reporting, and stay hands-on with complex engineering challenges while supporting agile delivery. This role offers a chance to influence technology decisions across the business and to mentor