Data Engineering Manager

Location: Greater London

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* Job Title:

Data Engineering Manager
**** Job Type: Full Time, Permanent
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* Location:

London, Hybrid
**** Role Purpose
** At Travelex we are developing modern data technology and data products. Data is central to the way we define and sell our foreign currency exchange products. Our relationship with our customers is deeply data-driven.

The data engineering manager (
** DEM**) owns the design and delivery of all data flows to and from our data platform, underpinning crucial data products. The DEM is responsible for a significant transformation Travelex is going through, with event-driven and transactional enhancements to our enterprise data architecture, alongside expansion of our data warehousing function to support a wide range of data integrations.
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* Main Responsibilities:

**** Leadership & Strategy
*** Work with the Director of Data Engineering and IT Leadership to enhance the company's data maturity.
* Maintain strong business alignment by engaging with leaders across domains and geographies.
* Ensure data engineering initiatives match evolving business priorities.
* Promote a product mindset, balancing technical efficiency with clear business value.
** Team Management
*** Lead the Data Engineering team, providing supervision, coaching, and professional development.
* Work with the Data Delivery Manager to improve team productivity and velocity.
* Oversee planning sessions, standups, retros, and team meetings.
* Define and deliver technical goals & OKRs in collaboration with the teams.
** Technical Leadership
*** Own the architecture of the company's data platform, ensuring scalability, reliability, and security.
* Drive modernisation by transitioning from legacy systems to a lean, scalable platform.
* Act as a lead expert for technologies such as AWS, DBT, Airflow, and Databricks.
* Establish best practices for data modelling, ingestion, storage, streaming, and APIs.
** Governance & Standards
*** Ensure all technical decisions are well-justified, documented, and aligned with business needs.
* Lead reviews and approvals for Data Engineering, Data Science, and Data Visualization projects via data architecture review board.
* Promote best practices in data governance, security, data protection, and risk management.
** Operational Excellence
*** Oversee monitoring of live data products and lead response to data incidents.
* Drive improvements in data quality, working with data owners and managers.
* Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure seamless system integration.
* Advocate for reducing technical debt while balancing resource constraints.
** Innovation & Continuous Improvement
*** Stay updated with industry trends and recommend relevant technologies.
* Lead analysis, assessment, and design activities, influencing key decisions.
* Foster collaboration with data analysts and data scientists to develop impactful data products.
** Requirements – Skills and Experience
** To qualify for the DEM role, experience and skills from the list below are required.
** Essential:
*** Strong leadership:
An inspirational leader, engaging team player, and curious listener.
* Excellent problem-solving skills with experience in complex data products.
* Expertise in data engineering and cloud engineering, including data ingestion, transformation, and storage.
* Significant hands-on experience with AWS and its data services.
* Expert-level skills in SQL, Python, DBT, Airflow and Redshift.
* Confidence in coding, scripting, configuring, versioning, debugging, testing, and deploying.
* Ability to guide and mentor others in technical best practices.
* A product mindset, focusing on user needs when designing deliverables.
* Experience in designing technology solutions with complex end-to-end data flows.
* Experience in implementing data governance, including data cataloging, data lineage tracking, and metadata management to ensure data accuracy, accessibility, and compliance.
** Preferred:
*** Experience with Databricks
* Understanding of how data platforms interact with marketing and customer engagement platforms.
* Knowledge of service-oriented architecture, including exposing and consuming data via APIs, streams, and webhooks.
* Good understanding of…