Data Engineering Lead

Fluency (Part of M&C Saatchi Group) is looking for a Data Engineering Lead to join the team. As Data Engineering Lead, you will be responsible for shaping and scaling our data infrastructure while leading a team of Junior Data Engineers, Data Engineers, and Senior Data Engineers. This role is both technical and managerial, requiring strong leadership skills alongside deep expertise in cloud data architecture, DevOps, and data engineering best practices.

You will play a pivotal role in:

• Architecting and optimising data pipelines, ensuring high performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Leading by example, promoting engineering best practices through rigorous code reviews, documentation, and process optimisation.
• Ensuring the efficient execution of data workflows—managing job pipelines, optimising runtime, and automating deployments.
• Implementing DevOps principles within the data engineering function, improving CI/CD processes and infrastructure as code.
• Owning our cloud-based data platform—predominantly AWS, with exposure to GCP and Azure as a plus.
• Managing and mentoring a growing team of engineers, supporting their technical development and career progression.
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams including Data Science, Analytics, and Product to deliver business value through data.

WHAT YOU'LL DO:

Leadership & Management

• Line manage and mentor a team of Data Engineers, setting objectives and fostering growth.
• Conduct code reviews to maintain high coding standards, identify inefficiencies, and encourage best practices.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation and processes, ensuring clarity and consistency across the team.
• Establish task pipelines and workflows to ensure efficient execution of jobs.

Promote a culture of continuous improvement and learning, keeping up with industry advancements.

Technical & Hands-On Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimise data pipelines using Python, SQL, and cloud-native technologies.
• Implement data governance and security best practices, ensuring compliance with industry regulations.
• Automate and manage infrastructure using DevOps and CI/CD tools (e.g. Terraform, GitHub Actions, Docker, Kubernetes).
• Drive cost optimisation strategies for data storage, processing, and cloud services.
• Deploy Infrastructure as Code (IaC)—Terraform or CloudFormation.
• Ensure reliability and scalability of data ingestion and transformation pipelines.
• Work with APIs and streaming data solutions, integrating various data sources.

ABOUT YOU

You are a competent data engineering lead and self-starter with an inquisitive mind. You are not afraid to ask questions. You form thought-provoking hypotheses. You are in the detail and love learning new approaches and techniques. You appreciate the importance of data in helping clients transform. You understand the importance of creating scalable data structures. You have a strong POV on how data is architected. Overall you have an unwavering attention to detail and a desire to learn new techniques and approaches.

WHAT YOU'LL BRING:

Essential:

• Extensive experience in Data Engineering or related roles.
• Proven experience in a leadership role, managing and mentoring engineers.
• Strong proficiency in Python, SQL, and cloud data technologies.
• Deep, hands-on experience with AWS (Lambda, S3, Redshift, Glue, ECS, IAM, Kinesis, etc.).
• Previous experience of managing DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines for data engineering solutions, and infrastructure automation.
• Experience in performance tuning, job scheduling, and data pipeline monitoring.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and an ability to design scalable architectures.
• Strong understanding of containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes).

Desirable:

• Experience with GCP or Azure in addition to AWS.
• Knowledge of data lake and data warehouse best practices.
• Experience working in marketing analytics or ad tech environments.
• Familiarity with ML workflows and data science pipelines.

HOW YOU’LL EXCEL

• You’ll lead the way in defining our cloud-first data architecture, ensuring Fluency stays at the forefront of data engineering.
• You’ll shape the culture of our data engineering team, fostering best practices and innovation.
• You’ll balance leadership with hands-on execution, ensuring high-quality, performant data solutions.
• You’ll drive automation and efficiency, optimising workflows to minimise manual effort and maximise impact.
• You’ll have a vision for scaling our data infrastructure as Fluency grows.

ABOUT FLUENCY:

Fluency is an award-winning global data consultancy that helps brands make smarter, faster business decisions that deliver stronger outcomes. Combined with the M&C Saatchi Group’s intellectual capital in brand, marketing, design, and CRM, Fluency specialises in delivering insight, foresight, and oversight solutions fuelled by high quality data, analytics, and technologies.

Our team of creative minds operate out of hubs in New York, London and Sydney. Clients include Amazon, NIKE, UK Government, and Ford.

WHAT YOU'LL GET

For the right candidate, we will offer a competitive salary and benefits package which includes 27 days annual holiday, private healthcare, employer contributory pension, life assurance and income protection.

Our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion sees us offer inclusive bank holidays, learning opportunities around DE&I, targeted mentoring programmes and the opportunity to participate in active Employee Led Networks and associated events.

ABOUT M&C SAATCHI GROUP

M&C Saatchi Group is a creative group of companies who navigate, create, and lead meaningful change for clients. Across five specialist divisions connected through people, culture, data, technology and creativity, M&C Saatchi Group aims to unlock new value for clients and leave a positive impact on the world.

M&C Saatchi Group’s work is informed by two core principles - Brutal Simplicity of Thought and Diversity of Thought. Together they guide how problems are solved and integrated specialist teams are built. Headquartered in London, M&C Saatchi Group have circa 2,500 employees globally of which 720 employees are UK based. Our operations span 23 countries with major hubs in the UK, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia and Australia. Having floated in 2004, M&C Saatchi plc is a constituent of the FTSE AIM. It has a market capitalisation of £250 million and ambitious growth plans.

M&C Saatchi Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer which does not discriminate, celebrates diversity and bases all hiring and promotion decisions solely on talent and capability, without regard for any personal characteristics.

All employee information is kept confidential according to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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