Senior Data Platform Architect (Azure & Databricks)

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is seeking a data engineering leader to architect and run a cloud-first data platform at scale. You will guide a global team, set governance standards, and drive data democratisation and AI-readiness across the firm.

You will own the design and delivery of scalable pipelines and data services, partnering with business and technical stakeholders to realise analytics and AI initiatives in a enterprise environment.

Qualifications

• Experience in data engineering, including designing and delivering data lake/lakehouse architectures in an enterprise cloud environment, ideally Microsoft Azure.
• Hands-on expertise with Databricks, Spark, PySpark, SQL and core Azure Data Services (Data Lake Storage, Synapse Analytics, Data Factory).
• Experience with data governance and cataloguing tools such as Collibra or Purview, plus familiarity with the modern data stack (dbt, CI/CD, streaming frameworks).
• Genuine leadership experience, with a passion for developing people as much as building systems.
• Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences, and a resilient, proactive mindset suited to a fast-paced, evolving environment.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain scalable, secure data lake and lakehouse solutions using Azure Data Lake, Databricks and Delta Lake.
• Develop and optimise batch and streaming ETL/ELT pipelines using Azure Data Factory, PySpark, SQL, Apache Spark and Airflow.
• Implement data cataloguing, lineage tracking and governance frameworks through Collibra, ensuring data is discoverable and compliant.
• Own day-to-day leadership, coaching and development of the Data Engineering team within the Global Data Office.
• Collaborate with Data Office leadership to define engineering strategy and build a high-performing engineering culture.
• Monitor and tune data jobs for performance, scalability and cost; embed data validation and monitoring.

Skills

Leadership

Data architecture

Cloud data platforms

Data governance

Strong communication

Tools

Databricks

Spark

PySpark

SQL

Airflow

dbt

Git CI/CD

Azure Data Factory

Synapse Analytics

Job description

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is seeking a data engineering leader to architect and run a cloud-first data platform at scale. You will guide a global team, set governance standards, and drive data democratisation and AI-readiness across the firm.

You will own the design and delivery of scalable pipelines and data services, partnering with business and technical stakeholders to realise analytics and AI initiatives in a enterprise environment.