Lead Data Engineer

Job description

**OVERVIEW:** This role exists to provide technical leadership within the data engineering team, setting the standard for engineering excellence while remaining deeply hands-on. The Lead Data Engineer drives the design and delivery of scalable, resilient data platforms and pipelines that underpin Gymshark's ambition to be a truly data driven business. Sitting at the intersection of craft and collaboration, this role shapes technical direction, raises the capability of those around them, and ensures the team builds the right things in the right way. **WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING:** **Technical Leadership:** ● Own and drive the technical design and architecture of data pipelines, data models, and platform components across the team. ● Set and enforce engineering standards: code quality, testing, observability, security, and documentation, ensuring the whole team operates to them ● Lead technical discovery, design sessions, and code reviews, providing constructive, actionable feedback that elevates team output. ● Identify and drive resolution of technical debt, proactively surfacing risks and proposing pragmatic solutions. ● Evaluate emerging tools and technologies (within the GCP ecosystem and beyond) and make grounded recommendations to the Data Engineering Manager. ● Work with the Data Engineering manager to find solutions to complex or ambiguous data engineering problems, unblocking the team and stakeholders. ● Ensure architectural decisions align with Gymshark's data strategy, platform vision, and evolving business needs. ● Champion a culture of engineering excellence through example, documentation, and knowledge sharing. **Delivery:** ● Own and drive the technical design and architecture of data pipelines, data models, and platform components across the team. ● Set and enforce engineering standards: code quality, testing, observability, security, and documentation, ensuring the whole team operates to them. ● Lead technical discovery, design sessions, and code reviews, providing constructive, actionable feedback that elevates team output. ● Identify and drive resolution of technical debt, proactively surfacing risks and proposing pragmatic solutions. ● Evaluate emerging tools and technologies (within the GCP ecosystem and beyond) and make grounded recommendations to the Data Engineering Manager. ● Work with the Data Engineering manager to find solutions to complex or ambiguous data engineering problems, unblocking the team and stakeholders. ● Ensure architectural decisions align with Gymshark's data strategy, platform vision, and evolving business needs. ● Champion a culture of engineering excellence through example, documentation, and knowledge sharing. **People & Craft:** ● Mentor and coach Data Engineers (Junior through Senior), supporting their technical growth and career progression. ● Facilitate knowledge sharing sessions, pairing, and documentation to build collective capability and reduce knowledge silos. ● Contribute to hiring: lead technical interviews, calibrate assessments, and help onboard new team members effectively. ● Partner with the Data Engineering Manager on team development planning, identifying skill gaps and proposing learning opportunities. ● Ensure team members feel supported, challenged, and set up to do their best work. **Governance & Collaboration:** ● Partner with Data Governance to embed data quality, access control, and privacy by design into all engineering work. ● Collaborate cross functionally with Data Product, and wider Tech teams to ensure joined up platform delivery. ● Maintain accurate and comprehensive technical documentation: architecture decision records, runbooks, pipeline specs, and data dictionaries. ● Uphold data governance, security, and compliance standards across all data engineering activities. **WHAT YOU'LL NEED: Essential Criteria:** **●**Strong experience in data engineering in a senior or lead-level technical role. ● Deep expertise in Google Cloud Platform: BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, and Cloud Composer (Airflow) as the primary data platform stack. ● Advanced Python and SQL skills, including writing performant, production grade code and conducting rigorous code reviews. ● Proven experience designing and building complex, scalable data pipelines using both batch and streaming/event driven patterns. ● Strong data modelling skills: dimensional modelling, data vault, or equivalent, with a track record of building well structured, reusable BigQuery data models. ● Experience with Dataform (or equivalent SQL based transformation tools) for orchestrating transformations within BigQuery at scale. ● Solid understanding of software engineering principles: CI/CD, version control (Git), testing frameworks, and infrastructure as code (Terraform). ● Demonstrated ability to embed data quality, observability, and alerting into pipelines (automated validation, anomaly detection, monitoring). ● Experience leading technical design sessions, owning architecture decisions, and communicating trade offs clearly to both technical and non technical audiences. ● Track record of mentoring or coaching engineers and growing technical capability within a team. ● Strong cross functional collaboration and stakeholder management skills, with experience translating business requirements into technical solutions. **Preferred Skills & Experience:** **●** Experience with DataProc (Spark) for large scale distributed data processing workloads. ● Familiarity with Looker or similar BI tooling, and an understanding of how data models feed downstream analytics and reporting. ● Exposure to analytics engineering practices and tooling (e.g. dbt conceptual patterns, data contracts, semantic layers). ● Experience in e-commerce or retail data environments is desirable. ● Familiarity with data mesh or data platform architecture patterns and their practical application in a scaled organisation. ● Experience with GCP cost management and BigQuery cost optimisation strategies. ● Broader exposure to ML infrastructure, feature engineering pipelines, or data science platform enablement. **CLOSING DATE: 21st August** **LOCATION:** Please note this is a hybrid role and requires the successful candidate to attend at least 3 days a week in GSIQ, Solihull, UK. **BELONGING AT GYMSHARK.** Our mission is to be a place where everyone belongs. We’re an equal opportunities employer, and for us that means we always strive to be as inclusive as possible in all aspects of employment, right from your application. We’re committed to finding reasonable adjustments\* for candidates with specific needs or have a disability during our recruitment process, and all applicants will be considered fairly and equally. We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. \*If you’d like to request a reasonable adjustment please email [talent@gymshark.com](mailto:talent@gymshark.com). **ABOUT US.** We’re here to unite the conditioning community. We believe that putting the sweat in today, prepares us for tomorrow. So, we give people the tools they need to reach further, go faster, be stronger. We celebrate those who show up – for themselves – to be their physical or mental best, whatever that means for them. It’s what we want for our community, and our team. A team that’s growing rapidly around the world. A collective of talented individuals working together to invent Gymshark’s future. Our plans are ambitious, and we’re looking for people who want to join us for the ride – our growth will be your growth. **THE PERKS.** Standard benefits include: - Performance-based Bonus opportunity - Funded Healthcare benefit - 25 days holiday, additional day for your birthday & Bank Holidays - Contributory Employer pension scheme - Flexible benefits programme – including salary sacrifice EV scheme, dental insurance, cycle to work, tech scheme, holiday trading - Gymshark Employee Discount & long service awards - Access to High Street cashback and discounts - Financial, Physical and Mental Wellbeing Support - Enhanced Family Leave package - Life Assurance Office location specific benefits include (IQ): - Gym Membership to The Lifting Club (LC) - Onsite lunch provision & coffee bars - EV charge points available **Note:** The bonus program and benefits have certain eligibility requirements. Gymshark reserves the right to amend these programs in whole or in part at any time without advance notice.