Engineering Manager - Data Platform

Sainsbury's; London; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in the retail sector is seeking an Engineering Manager for their Data Platform team in London. This role involves leading a high-performing engineering team, defining strategic directions, and managing substantial budgets, all while promoting modern engineering practices. The ideal candidate will bring robust leadership skills, a deep technical vision, and a collaborative approach to drive engineering excellence.

Benefits

Staff discounts

Pensions

Performance bonuses

Holiday allowances

Season ticket loans

Interest-free car loans

Cycle schemes

Health plans

Pay advances

Access to private healthcare

Qualifications

• Leadership in software engineering, preferably with large-scale platform experience.
• Deep expertise in Python, Terraform, CI/CD, AWS/Azure.
• Experience managing complex, multi-stakeholder projects.

Responsibilities

• Define strategic direction with Product, Architecture, and leadership.
• Lead and grow a high-performing engineering team.
• Ensure high service quality and meet SLAs.

Skills

Leadership

Python

Terraform

CI/CD

Cloud platforms

Agile methodologies

Job description

Engineering Manager - Data Platform

About the team:

ASPIRE is the foundation for data-driven decisions at Sainsbury’s, democratizing petabytes of valuable data assets in the UK. It powers analytics, reporting, data science, and machine learning, enabling teams to deliver high-quality data products.

Our objectives include:

1. Empowering engineering teams to deliver robust, production-grade data products efficiently.
2. Democratizing data for insights and decisions while maintaining governance, security, and cost control.
3. Innovating continuously to generate value from data at scale.

Our tech stack comprises Snowflake, AWS, Azure, dbt, Airflow, Python, Terraform, and GitHub Actions.

What you’ll do:

• Define the strategic direction in partnership with Product, Architecture, and leadership.
• Decide on build vs. buy strategies to maximize internal efforts.
• Lead and grow a high-performing engineering team to deliver features efficiently and with quality.
• Recruit, mentor, and foster a culture of learning and collaboration.
• Ensure high service quality and meet SLAs.
• Promote modern engineering practices and agile methodologies.
• Manage third-party partners for high standards of delivery.
• Manage a ~£1m budget ensuring value delivery.

What you bring:

• Proven leadership in software engineering, preferably with large-scale platform experience.
• Deep expertise in Python, Terraform, CI/CD, and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure).
• Strong technical vision and ability to lead others.
• Experience managing complex, multi-stakeholder projects.
• Collaborative leadership style and ability to build relationships across teams.

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Our commitment:

We are inclusive and support your development, offering flexible working, benefits, and recognition. Benefits include staff discounts, pensions, life cover, performance bonuses, holiday allowances, season ticket loans, interest-free car loans, cycle schemes, health plans, pay advances, retailer discounts, and access to private healthcare and Employee Assistance Programmes.

We provide up to 26 weeks’ maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ paternity leave. For more details, visit www.sainsburys.jobs.