Senior Data Engineer

Role Summary

Tasman is defining the future of Data Analytics-as-a-Service. We are a young and growing company funded fully by analytics & data science work for our ambitious clients.

We are hiring a senior data engineer at Tasman to:

• Take ownership of the design and implementation of data pipelines and platforms for our clients
• Mentor and develop other Engineers to achieve their full potential
• Work with Data Product Manager to develop plans and roadmaps that deliver on client objectives each sprint and throughout the engagement
• Support and enable other functions within your team to deliver data products.

ABOUT YOU

You are someone who:

• Has solid technical foundations and is comfortable working in different cloud environments.
• Enjoys learning new technologies, tooling and ways of working (in line with clients practices and technology preferences).
• Is passionate about bringing software engineering best practices into the data space.
• Thrives working in a fast paced environment where you will be on multiple client projects concurrently.
• Can plan out your workload and identify the compromises required to deliver early value to clients.
• Is continuously looking for ways to improve what and how we deliver modern data products.
• Is an excellent communicator and able to work closely with all functions in a business.
• Is comfortable explaining their thinking and discussing different approaches to a problem to people with different technical backgrounds and knowledge.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Data Analytics teams at Tasman works closely with clients to translate business questions into tangible data insights. As a Data Engineer in one of our squads you will work with Analytics Engineers and Data Analysts to deliver data products such as customer acquisition models, customer retention models, user attribution models, and much more.

We are technology agnostic (but opinionated!) and work across all major cloud providers. Depending on client choice we may either leverage third party tools such as Fivetran, Airbyte, Stitch or build custom pipelines. We use the main data warehouses for dbt modelling and have extensive experience with Redshift, BigQuery and Snowflake. Recently we’ve been rolling out a serverless implementation of dbt and progressing work on internal product to build modular data platforms.

When initially working with clients, you will create a system diagram that maps out the existing tech and data stack. Using this as an opportunity to initiate discussions you will gather requirements from internal and external stakeholders. Technical Assessment tasks sets out system design for engineering solutions and will help de-risk engineering work. Part of this phase of work is to break work down into multiple stories and tasks. Once signed off, you will proactively work to implement the design on clients’ cloud infrastructure. You will champion software engineering best practices across the team and help other team members and engineers deliver their work.

Requirements Gathering

We build data platforms and pipelines in response to both our internal requirements and clients' needs, resource capacity and technical maturity. The first step is to map out our clients’ existing data stack. We understand what we have been engaged to deliver and the client’s existing technology stack. To do this effectively we gather requirements and continuously refine these through the life of the project.

As a Senior Data Engineer, you will lead discovery sessions with client engineers to understand their technology stack and requirements for deployed data infrastructure.

In summary you will be expected to:

• Translate both client and internal stakeholder requirements into a clear plan/approach for delivery
• Understand the broader goal of our work and where the data engineering work fits in and brings value
• Work with Analytics Engineers and Data Analysts to align on the delivery plan
• Document and communicate requirements to stakeholders.

Design

Requirements from stakeholders and cost considerations are used to inform our designs for data platforms. We translate these requirements into a coherent, cost efficient and modern data platform design with the expectation of eventually handing the platform back to clients.

As a Senior Data Engineer you would work independently to convert requirements into system designs. You are further able to break down implementation work into stories and tasks that will likely require work over multiple sprints to deliver. Key to gaining sign-off on engineering designs is confident presentation of your work to peers and client engineers, responding openly to challenges and questions.

In summary you will be expected to:

• Balance various aspects of architecting a technical solution, including cost (both financial and human resources), robustness, maintainability, complexity, performance as well as suitability for the specific client requirements, technical maturity and capability
• Liaise with clients to understand their existing systems and services, and communicate how the proposed solution fits in
• Define the next steps for delivery, with clear descriptions, dependencies and acceptance criteria, keeping the story objectives top of mind.
• Good understanding of modern software engineering principles

Technical Knowledge

Clients engage our services because of our recognised thought leadership and technical excellence. We build modern, robust, maintainable, production-ready data products and platforms. We also look to the future for the next big data technologies and continuously reflect on what and how we are delivering to

As a Senior Data Engineer, you represent Tasman’s technical capabilities to clients. You should have a solid knowledge of modern data and software engineering practices. As we need to get up to speed quickly on varied client data stacks, a love of learning new technologies and tooling is vital. You should have experience with building pipelines and data infrastructure in a cloud environment and understand the trade-offs of managed versus bespoke solutions. You are a proficient user of Python and SQL.

In summary you will be expected to:

• Independently implement the following in a data platform:
• Cloud infrastructure and services
• Infrastructure as Code
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Containerisation
• Orchestration
• Version Control Systems
• Data Warehousing
• ETL/ELT pipelines
• Have working knowledge of Python and SQL
• Promote best data security practices including:
• Identification and treatment of PII data
• Client secrets management
• Building secure data products and pipelines

Stakeholder Management

Working with both internal and external stakeholders good communication skills are key to succeeding in this role. We self-organise to continuously deliver high-impact data products to our clients and to ensure data engineers are enabling this we proactively communicate with stakeholders. Good communication skills are essential as we are a remote-first company, working closely in multi-functional teams. At every stage of the process we ensure stakeholders know what we are delivering, and when we have delivered our work, ensure we transfer knowledge back to clients in handover sessions.

As a Senior Data Engineer, you’ll feel comfortable communicating with a wide variety of stakeholders to deliver your work. As a senior data consultant you must feel comfortable liaising with a wide range of stakeholders: internal and external, technical and non-technical and at varying seniorities.

In summary you will be expected to:

• Be confident in leading the client through engineering solutions that have their best interests in mind.
• Be able to run multiple client projects concurrently and balance out competing requirements for your time.
• Effectively and lean towards over-communicating with clients and team members; providing updates on progress and blockers.
• Be able to communicate technical information to a range of stakeholders, from non-technical stakeholders to client engineers and leadership.

Leadership

As the Senior Data Engineer within your squad you will work with other function seniors in steering the engineering output of the squad. You will also freely share your knowledge and experience with other team members. Coaching and mentoring more junior members of the team is crucial to help other team members progress through their careers.

In summary you will be expected to:

• Effectively work across functions to deliver client work, identifying blockers and helping other team members access the data assets required to do their work
• Further add to the data engineering capabilities of Tasman by sharing your knowledge, taking on new types of engineering work and setting the example for technical excellence.
• Mentor other Data Engineers to achieve their career goals.
• Work with the wider company to develop new ways of working that improve the efficiency, quality, and consistency of Tasman work.
• Develop deep domain expertise that improves our ability to deliver industry-leading solutions to data problems.

Compensation & Benefits

At Tasman we are committed to creating an environment where our team members can thrive both personally and professionally. As a remote-first organisation, we understand the importance of supporting our employees in ways that go beyond traditional office perks. In addition to competitive salary compensation, below are some of the benefits you'll enjoy as part of our team, designed to enhance your well-being, and foster your growth.