Data Platform Lead

Description:

The Data Platform Lead is a senior technical leadership role accountable for the strategy, development, and performance of Unilode’s data platform infrastructure. This role oversees the design and operation of the company’s Databricks-based warehouse environment, enabling high-impact analytics, data science, and operational intelligence. The Data Platform Lead partners with cross-functional teams and executive stakeholders to ensure scalability, compliance, and efficiency, while driving platform innovation to meet evolving business needs.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Data Platform Leadership

Business Insight, Drive Results, Collaborate, Courage, Financial Acumen, Ensure Accountability

• Own and evolve the Databricks data platform strategy to align with analytics, product, and business priorities.
• Design and operate data environments (DEV, STG, PROD) to support performance, governance, and scalability.
• Act as the technical authority on data infrastructure decisions, aligning with long-term business goals.
• Lead initiatives to consolidate data tools, modernise platform architecture, and reduce technical debt.

Cross-Functional Stakeholder Engagement

Collaborate, Courage, Develops Talent, Customer Focus

• Partner with analytics engineers, data scientists, product owners, and commercial leaders to shape platform capability.
• Translate business requirements into scalable platform features and infrastructure services.
• Support education and enablement of platform users, promoting efficient and cost-conscious usage.
• Serve as the escalation point for platform-related issues and strategic data decisions.

Data Governance and Security

Ensure Accountability, Drive Results, Collaborate, Customer Focus

• Collaborate with the Data Governance team to embed policies that ensure data transparency, retention, and compliance.
• Align platform infrastructure to regulatory standards and internal governance frameworks.
• Drive best practices around cost monitoring, access management, and secure query operations.

Technical Execution and Vendor Management

Business Insight, Drive Results, Financial Acumen

• Manage relationships with platform vendors including Databricks, overseeing usage, renewals, and optimisation.
• Lead platform performance tuning, cost forecasting, and environment scaling to support global usage.
• Implement DR, compute allocation, and performance monitoring practices in partnership with DevOps and infrastructure teams.

Team Development and Capability Building

Develops Talent, Inspire, Empower and Prosper

• Mentor platform users and junior engineers, building internal capability and platform understanding.
• Contribute to training material, knowledge bases, and platform documentation.
• Promote a culture of experimentation, learning, and accountability within the analytics engineering community.

Our Values in Action:

• Be humble and curious: You proactively seek new technologies, challenge the status quo, and share knowledge.
• Inspire, empower and prosper: You lead by example, mentoring platform users and enabling innovation at scale.
• Team up to be better: You collaborate across engineering, analytics, and governance to deliver seamless solutions.
• Be passionate about our customers: You ensure the platform enables fast, accurate insights to power decision-making.
• Take ownership and get stuff done: You drive high-quality, scalable platform delivery with accountability.
• Be eager to win: You optimise costs, unlock automation, and remove bottlenecks to stay ahead.
• Build a better future: You future-proof Unilode’s data platform through modernisation, standardisation, and governance.

The Small Print

This is a senior technical role with broad strategic scope and cross-functional influence. It requires strong architectural knowledge, leadership presence, and the ability to bridge business needs with technical infrastructure. The role balances platform design, governance, optimisation, and stakeholder enablement. This job description outlines the scope and expectations of the role and its alignment with Unilode’s Band 3 competencies and values—it is not an exhaustive list of responsibilities.

Requirements:

Skills and Experience

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Data Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Proven experience in managing enterprise-scale data platforms.
• Strong expertise in Databricks, Spark, and SQL performance optimisation.
• Track record of leading infrastructure projects and cloud platform strategy at scale.
• Deep understanding of platform cost management, DR strategy, and governance integration.
• Experience working with Agile teams and delivering platform capabilities that support end users.
• Ability to influence across functions and lead without direct authority.
• Strong vendor management, stakeholder communication, and planning skills.