Data Platform Engineering Manager

NatWest Boxed; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

NatWest Boxed is seeking an Data Platform Engineering Manager to own our data ecosystem and guide a high-performing squad in architecting and maintaining a scalable data platform. You will empower business units to ingest, manage, and leverage data across varied strategic needs.

You will lead, mentor, and grow a data engineering team, shape the strategic roadmap for the platform, and collaborate with security to ensure robust, secure data infrastructure in a regulated environment.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading, managing and scaling data mesh architectures.
• Experience in FinTech/Banking domain preferred.
• Hands-on programming in Python or Go.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a data engineering team to build and maintain a scalable data platform.
• Define strategic vision and roadmap for the data platform, focusing on self-service, reliability, and security.
• Evaluate architectural designs and ensure alignment with business goals, platform vision, and security standards.
• Champion engineering excellence with CI/CD, SRE practices and operational health via SLOs.
• Collaborate with Product, Architecture and Security teams to deliver a robust data platform.

Skills

Data mesh leadership

Cloud-native platforms

SRE practices

CI/CD

Stakeholder management

Python

Go

Tools

AWS

GCP

Kafka

Terraform

Crossplane

Datadog

OpenTelemetry

Job description

• Identifying and solve engineering-wide challenges as they appear
• We’ll look to you to deliver exceptionally high-quality work and empower engineers to make a big impact
• Investing in NatWest Boxed’s overall platform architecture
• Ensuring the security of our systems and working practice

Join us as an Engineering Manager

• Identifying and solve engineering-wide challenges as they appear
• We’ll look to you to deliver exceptionally high-quality work and empower engineers to make a big impact
• Investing in NatWest Boxed’s overall platform architecture
• Ensuring the security of our systems and working practice

What you’ll do

As a Data Platform Engineering Manager, you will take ownership of our data ecosystem, guiding a high-performing engineering squad to architect and maintain a robust platform that empowers every business unit to effectively ingest, manage, and leverage data for varied strategic requirements.

Day-to-day, You’ll Be

• Leading, mentoring and growing a high-performing team of data engineers, shaping our hiring strategy and fostering a culture of innovation and ownership
• Defining the strategic vision and technical roadmap for our data platform, focusing on self-service, reliability, scalability, security, and user experience
• Critically evaluating architectural proposals and technical designs from the team, ensuring alignment with long-term business goals, platform vision, architecture and security
• Championing engineering excellence by embedding best practices for self-service platform engineering, CI/CD, and SRE, while owning the operational health of our platform through SLOs
• Collaborating with Product, Architecture, Analytics, Operations and Security teams to deliver a secure, robust platform that enables all groups to easily manage data within defined standards
• Driving projects from inception to delivery, taking into consideration the needs of your customers whilst fitting into the wider Platform strategy
• Engaging with clients and vendors on integration patterns and implementation

The skills you'll need

We’re looking for someone with proven experience leading, managing, and scaling high-performing data mesh architectures as well as the ability to connect technical architecture decisions directly to business outcomes; you understand the cost, risk, and revenue impact. It would be great if you had experience with FinTech / Banking and hands‑on experience with programming languages such as Python or Go.

You’ll Also Have

• A strong technical background in cloud-native technologies (e.g., AWS, GCP), event streaming (Kafka), and data-mesh tooling
• Deep understanding of modern platform engineering principles, including infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform, Crossplane), data streaming platforms, data transformation, observability (e.g., Datadog, OpenTelemetry) and self-service platform design
• A strategic mindset with experience designing, building, and operating scalable, distributed systems in a regulated environment
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences internal and external