Vetted on a call by a Wave consultant, not scraped. £100,000 to £110,000.
Runs four technical areas at once for a supply chain business: data engineering, ML, BI and infrastructure, with a team spread across four countries. Python and SQL underneath, Kafka and Debezium for change data capture, Dagster and Airflow for orchestration, ClickHouse and BigQuery for storage, on GCP and AWS with Terraform and Kubernetes. 3 plus years of that leading rather than building.
Looking forNow a UK tax resident and wants a UK-based leadership role that keeps them hands-on rather than pushing them fully into slide decks. Sees people management and resource allocation as the main job, with platform ownership alongside it.
How they came acrossPragmatic and business-first. Ships working solutions iteratively rather than over-engineering, and was blunt that a team lead's first duty is their people, not the architecture diagram.
Python, SQL, Kafka, Debezium · Dagster, Airflow, dbt · ClickHouse, BigQuery · GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform
Six employers over 17 years, from data analysis and project management in media and consulting into data science, then data engineering leadership at a steel group and now a supply chain business. Average tenure 3 years 6 months, longest 9 years.
All the leadership experience is with a distributed team outside the UK, so a UK-based team would be new ground. Notice is unusually short at 3 weeks.
Masters in Supply Chain Management.
Cloud-native data platforms on Azure and AWS, with Databricks and Snowflake at the centre and Terraform and CI/CD wrapped round them. Current build is a lakehouse platform for a UK water utility, using medallion architecture and Delta Live Tables. Before that they ran a data engineering function at a gaming business and grew it from 2 people to 6.
Looking forTook a pay cut to move into the current role and wants to get back to head-of-data-engineering level. Management is the goal rather than a deeper IC track, and they are looking at roles paying up to about £110k.
How they came acrossThe career has moved unusually fast, graduate scheme to architect to head of function, and they are aware of it. Comfortable in front of senior stakeholders and external customers, which the forward-deployed work demands most days.
Python, SQL, PySpark · Databricks, Snowflake, dbt, Delta Live Tables · Airflow, Fivetran · Terraform, AWS, Azure
Seven employers over 7 years, mostly consultancy, from a graduate scheme through solutions architect and managing consultant to head of data engineering at a gaming studio, then back into a principal consulting role. Average tenure 9 months, longest 1 year 8 months.
Average tenure is 9 months and the longest stint is 20, which needs a proper explanation. Also wants the management title back, so an IC-only brief will not land.
Masters in Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management from a Russell Group university. AWS Solutions Architect Associate.
Leads data engineering at a large UK retailer, on Databricks and Spark with Python and SQL, Structured Streaming and Event Hubs for the real-time side, and Terraform and DevOps pipelines around it. Drove the MLOps and DataOps practice for the team, including code review standards and best-practice documentation. Six years specialised in data engineering after a career entirely in technical data roles.
Looking forProgression has stalled inside a matrix structure and retail operations is not where they want to spend the next decade. Wants a management role that keeps hands-on technical work in it, at a company where technology is the product.
How they came acrossHad direct line management for a year before a restructure moved them back to technical lead, and has the management training behind it. Balanced between architectural ownership and staying close to the code, and open about enjoying customer-facing work.
Python, SQL, Spark, FastAPI · Databricks, Spark Structured Streaming, Event Hubs · AWS, Azure, Redshift · Terraform, CI/CD
Seven employers over 18 years, from a government defence research organisation and an investment bank through consulting, BI and data engineering across casinos, enterprise software and cruise, now leading data engineering at a large UK retailer. Average tenure 2 years 10 months, longest 5 years 9 months.
Wants the management title, not just the lead responsibilities, and is explicit about leaving retail behind. 1 month notice.
Bachelors in Physics with Business and Management from a Russell Group university. Databricks certified Spark developer.
Tell me which came closest and I recalibrate, then come back with 10 to 15 more inside 24 hours.
Show me the wider bank