Data Engineering Manager - Manchester

Data Engineering Manager (hands on) - Manchester

I’m working with a hypergrowth business in Manchester who are looking for a Data Engineering Manager. They have new PE investment behind them and a major transformation project is underway.

This is a hands-on leadership role sitting at the centre of a significant data platform transformation. You will be running the data engineering squad, responsible for delivering the data infrastructure, pipelines, and reporting capabilities the wider business depends on.

They are moving away from traditional batch processing toward a real-time, event-driven architecture and you will be leading that technical journey while keeping everything running reliably in the meantime. It is not a steady-state role there is a real mandate for change, proper investment to back it up, and a new Data Director coming in who wants to build something impressive.

What’s in it for you?

£88,000

Hybrid working, 3 days per week in Manchester City Centre

27 days holiday plus bank holidays, your birthday off,

Enhanced parental leave

Income protection for up to 5 years, life assurance at 3x salary, health cash plan, virtual GP and therapy access

Gym discounts, cycle to work, free food and a Friday bar + much more.

A genuine leadership seat at the table during a period of real transformation

The chance to modernise a data platform from the ground up, event streaming, cloud-native, AI-ready

Newly centralised data function with a clear path upward as it grows

Must have

Cloud data engineering on AWS – this is non-negotiable

People management and team leadership experience

Strong SQL and T-SQL

ETL/ELT pipelines, SSIS, Matillion or similar

Data visualisation

Infrastructure as Code awareness, Terraform or similar

Stakeholder management

Nice to have

Real-time and event-driven data platform experience

Lakehouse or cloud-native data platform architecture experience

Data lakes, object storage, and large-scale analytical processing

ML or advanced analytics exposure

AWS security, networking and access control

GDPR and data governance awareness

Day to Day

Leading and developing your data engineering squad performance conversations, career development, day-to-day support

Getting hands-on across pipelines, cloud infrastructure, transformation layers, and reporting

Driving the migration toward real-time, event-driven data processing

Keeping existing SQL Server environments stable and performant while the modern platform is built out

Working closely with stakeholders across the business to understand requirements and deliver solutions

Embedding good engineering practices CI/CD, IaC, Agile where they are not already in place

Mentoring colleagues and helping to grow capability across the team

Why it’s a good time to join them?

The data, analytics and insights functions previously operated separately are being brought together for the first time under a single Data Director. That means you would be joining at the moment the foundation is being laid, not after the decisions have already been made.

There is a signed-off transformation programme, a technical roadmap that includes real-time streaming, AI-readiness and a move toward a modern cloud platform, and senior leadership that genuinely values data.

APPLY NOW with your CV or email

Please note the role cannot offer sponsorship and is not suitable for those on short term visas

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