Data Platform Lead

£80,000 £90,000 + £9,000 Car Allowance + Bonus
North West Hybrid 3 days per week

We're supporting a large UK organisation that has made a significant investment in its enterprise data capability and is now looking for a Data Platform Lead to take ownership of the next phase of its Microsoft Fabric journey.

The foundations are already in place. Microsoft Fabric has been established as the strategic data platform and the initial transformation has been successfully delivered.

The next phase is about maturing the platform improving architecture, engineering standards, scalability, automation and governance, while ensuring it can support the organisation's continued growth and future ambitions around AI.

This isn't a role to simply maintain an existing platform, nor is it another Fabric implementation project.

It's an opportunity to own the technical direction of an enterprise data platform and shape what it becomes next.

Working closely with the Head of Data, you'll become the technical lead for the data platform, taking ownership of its architecture, engineering direction and ongoing evolution.

You'll lead a small team of Data Engineers while remaining close to the technology providing technical direction, mentoring the team, reviewing designs and getting involved in complex engineering challenges where required.

You'll have the autonomy to understand what's already been built, challenge existing approaches where appropriate and establish the standards needed to develop a scalable, reliable and well-governed enterprise platform.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Owning the technical roadmap and architecture of the Microsoft Fabric platform.
• Driving engineering standards, reusable patterns and development best practice.
• Improving CI/CD, automation, testing and wider DevOps maturity.
• Ensuring the platform remains scalable, reliable, secure and cost-effective.
• Supporting strong data governance, quality and platform controls.
• Leading and developing a small Data Engineering team.
• Supporting the integration of new data sources as the organisation continues to evolve.
• Working with senior technical and business stakeholders to translate requirements into platform capabilities.
• Helping establish the data foundations required to support future AI and automation initiatives.
• Remaining technically close to the platform and supporting the team with complex architecture and engineering decisions.

Strong Microsoft Fabric experience is essential.

We're looking for someone who combines strong modern Data Engineering expertise with the ability to think beyond individual solutions and take ownership of a wider enterprise data platform.

You'll ideally bring:

• Strong hands-on experience designing, building or evolving Microsoft Fabric data platforms.
• Strong modern Data Engineering experience and an understanding of scalable data architecture.
• Experience influencing platform architecture, technical standards and engineering best practice.
• A good understanding of modern engineering practices including CI/CD, Git, automation and testing.
• Experience leading, mentoring or providing technical direction to Data Engineers.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to work effectively with both technical teams and senior business stakeholders.

Experience across areas such as Medallion Architecture, Microsoft Purview, data governance, Python/PySpark, real-time/streaming, metadata-driven engineering or AI-enabled data products would be advantageous, but we're not expecting one person to tick every box.

This is an opportunity to join at an interesting point in a major data transformation.

The investment has been made, the core platform is established and the foundations are there. The challenge now is to take ownership of what comes next.

You'll have genuine influence over the technical direction of an enterprise Microsoft Fabric platform, significant autonomy in how it evolves and the opportunity to work closely with an experienced Head of Data who is looking for a technical partner, rather than simply another engineer.

For someone who has already developed strong Microsoft Fabric expertise and is now looking for greater ownership, technical leadership and the opportunity to shape a platform over the long term, this represents a genuine next step.