Engineering Manager – Data

Overview

Lead Nominet’s data function to unify data platform engineering, analytics, and database engineering into a high-performing, customer-focused team. Drive modernisation of the data estate and establish automated, code-defined infrastructure while treating internal data consumers as customers. You will set engineering standards, grow the team, and deliver a reliable, well-governed data platform with measurable impact. This leadership role combines people management with technical depth to elevate engineering practice and capability.

Pay / Benefits

• Early Finish Friday – 34-hour week
• 30 days annual leave + bank holidays (+5 days option)
• Bupa private healthcare + Employee Assistance Programme
• Pension scheme matched to 7%
• Electric vehicle scheme with on-site charging
• Annual company bonus

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a multidisciplinary team of ~11 across data platform engineering, data analysis and database engineering, including recruitment and performance management.
• Foster a culture of accountability, psychological safety, continuous improvement, and cross-discipline learning.
• Own the roadmap for Databricks, analytics capability and Oracle/PostgreSQL databases, balancing strategy, ops, and debt.
• Drive modern engineering practices: version control, peer review, CI/CD, automated testing, IaC, and reduce manual production changes.
• Lead the transition to code-defined, automated, rebuildable database environments with automated migrations.
• Own observability, reliability and cost management for the data estate with clear SLAs for dependent services.
• Ensure data quality, ownership, lineage, governance, security and privacy are engineered into the platform.
• Develop a strong internal product mindset by aligning the roadmap to internal customer workflows and feedback loops.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, security, architecture and business teams and manage third-party/vendor relationships.

Key requirements

• Demonstrable experience line managing engineers or analysts with development, performance and recruitment responsibilities.
• Strong data-focused engineering background (data platform engineering, data engineering, database engineering) with hands-on credibility.
• Practical experience with a public cloud lakehouse or modern data platform; Databricks and Spark are advantageous.
• Solid grounding in relational databases at scale (Oracle and/or PostgreSQL).
• Experience with DevOps practices for data/databases: IaC, CI/CD, automated schema migrations, configuration management.
• Proven track record of raising engineering standards in an existing team.
• Customer or product orientation in internal-facing teams.
• Excellent communication, judgment to decide, delegate, and escalate.

• leadership
• communication
• collaboration
• Databricks
• Spark
• Oracle

…