Lead Data Engineer

Inspire; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Inspire Brands is seeking a Lead Data and AI Engineer for the Enterprise Data Organization to design, build and manage data pipelines and AI-driven solutions. You will lead data engineering teams, drive best practices, and collaborate with product owners to understand business needs.

You will work hands-on across ETL, data storage, and AI/LLM initiatives, leveraging cloud platforms (Azure) and modern tooling to deliver scalable, production-ready data services in Atlanta.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in a data engineering role.
• 5+ years of advanced SQL queries, scripts, stored procedures, materialized views, and views.
• 3+ years of DevOps and CI/CD tooling experience.
• Experience with one or more cloud platforms (Azure preferred).
• Hands-on Python development experience.
• Snowflake experience a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead and guide multiple technical data engineering team members.
• Design, build, and operate data pipelines: ingestion, transformation, distribution, quality, and storage.
• Develop and operationalize AI solutions from concept to production.
• Implement infrastructure as code, automated testing, and modern observability.
• Mentor and cultivate a scalable engineering culture across data teams.
• Collaborate with product managers to translate business needs into data/AI solutions.
• Work with architects and data modelers on Data and AI jobs to meet business needs.
• Produce production-ready, well-documented data solutions; ensure coding standards.

Skills

Advanced SQL

Python

Cloud computing

LLMs / Agentic AI

AI/ML delivery

Agile methodologies

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Azure Data Factory

Apache Airflow

Tableau

Informatica

Talend

GitHub Copilot

Temporal

Pydantic AI

Azure OpenAI

Job description

Inspire Brands is hiring a Lead Data and AI Engineer for the Enterprise Data Organization to design, build and manage data pipelines (Data ingestion, data transformation, data distribution, quality rules, data storage etc.) using cutting edge AI solutions (Generative AI, Agentic AI, etc.). The candidate will need to possess strong technical, analytical, programming and critical thinking skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead/guide multiple technical data engineering team members
• Lead by example – designing, building, maintaining and using of our platforms and services to manage data
• Design, develop, deploy including documenting AI solutions from concept to operationalization
• Demonstrate and guide implementation of Infrastructure as code, automated testing and modern observability strategies
• Responsible for growing an engineering culture of craftsmanship through mentoring, technical leadership as well as formal and informal presentations across data teams at Inspire
• Work closely with Product owners/managers to understand the business needs
• Collaborate with architects, data modelers and other team members to design Data and AI jobs to fulfill business needs
• Lead sessions with data engineers and provide necessary guidance to solve technical challenges
• Develop new and/or enhance existing data processes (Data Ingest, Data Transformation, Data Store, Data Management, Data Quality)
• Actively contribute towards setting up and refining data engineering best practices
• Help data engineers adhere to coding standards, best practices, etc. and produce production deployable code that is robust, scalable and reusable
• Document technical artifacts for data engineering solutions
• Stay up-to-date with latest AI trends and integrate emerging technologies to drive improved system performance with balanced operational pragmatism

Education And Experience Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in a data engineering role required
• 5+ years of experience with advanced SQL queries, scripts, stored procedures, materialized views, and views
• 5+ years of hands-on design and development experience in the data space specifically focused on ELT to load data and perform transformations in databases
• 3+ years of experience with DevOps Models utilizing CI/CD tools
• Experience in one of the cloud platforms like Azure, AWS, GCP is required, Azure specifically is preferred
• Demonstrated hands on experience with Python is required
• Snowflake experience a plus

Required Knowledge, Skills, Or Abilities

• Strong ability to use analytical SQL functions
• Ability to delivery AI/ML projects from POC to production and support leveraging GitHub Copilot, Azure OpenAI, AI Search, Temporal, Pydantic AI, etc
• Strong expertise in LLMs building agents: open/closed-source models, advanced prompt engineering techniques, RAG, Agentic AI, document processing, vector/hybrid search, guardrails, observability & monitoring, and LLM evaluation
• Ability to work hands-on in a Cloud environment of Azure Cloud Platform (ADLS, Blob)
• Strong skills one of the ETL tools like Informatica, Talend,Azure Data Factory, and BI tools like Tableau preferred
• Strong skills with orchestration tools like ApacheAirflow
• Expert ability to analyze data models
• Strong skills performance tuning and scaling of services
• Good interpersonal skills; comfort and competence in dealing with different teams within the organization
• Skilled leveraging Agile practices and methodologies

This position is based in our Atlanta Support Center, with an expected on-site presence of 80%.

Inspire is a multi-brand restaurant company whose portfolio includes more than 33,300 Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s, and SONIC restaurants worldwide. We’re made up of some of the world’s most iconic restaurant brands, but we’re much more than just a restaurant company. We’re a team of hundreds of thousands who individually and collectively are changing the way people eat, drink, and gather around the table. We know that food is much more than a staple—it’s an experience. At Inspire, that’s our purpose: to ignite and nourish flavorful experiences.