Data Engineering Manager

Role Description:

We are seeking a seasoned Engineering Manager (Data Engineering) to drive the development and implementation of our data strategy with deep expertise in R&D of Biotech or Pharma domain. This role will lead a team of data engineers to build, optimize, and maintain scalable data architectures, data pipelines, and operational frameworks that support real-time analytics, AI-driven insights, and enterprise-wide data solutions.

As a strategic leader, the ideal candidate will drive best practices in data engineering, cloud technologies, and Agile development, ensuring robust governance, data quality, and efficiency. The role requires technical expertise, team leadership, and a deep understanding of cloud data solutions to optimize data-driven decision-making.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Lead and mentor a team of data engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning for solving complex problems of R&D division.
• Oversee the development of data extraction, validation, and transformation techniques, ensuring ingested data is of high quality and compatible with downstream systems.
• Guide the team in writing and validating high-quality code for data ingestion, processing, and transformation, ensuring resiliency and fault tolerance.
• Drive the development of data tools and frameworks for managing and accessing data efficiently across the organization.
• Oversee the implementation of performance monitoring protocols across data pipelines, ensuring real-time visibility, alerts, and automated recovery mechanisms.
• Coach engineers in building dashboards and aggregations to monitor pipeline health and detect inefficiencies, ensuring optimal performance and cost-effectiveness.
• Lead the implementation of self-healing solutions, reducing failure points and improving pipeline stability and efficiency across multiple product features.
• Oversee data governance strategies, ensuring compliance with security policies, regulations, and data accessibility best practices.
• Guide engineers in data modeling, metadata management, and access control, ensuring structured data handling across various business use cases.
• Collaborate with business leaders, product owners, and cross-functional teams to ensure alignment of data architecture with product requirements and business objectives.
• Prepare team members for stakeholder discussions by helping assess data costs, access requirements, dependencies, and availability for business scenarios.
• Drive Agile and Scaled Agile (SAFe) methodologies, managing sprint backlogs, prioritization, and iterative improvements to enhance team velocity and project delivery.
• Stay up-to-date with emerging data technologies, industry trends, and best practices, ensuring the organization leverages the latest innovations in data engineering and architecture.

Functional Skills:

Must-Have Skills:

• Experience managing a team of data engineers in the R&D domain of biotech/pharma companies.
• Experience architecting and building data and analytics solutions that extract, transform, and load data from multiple source systems.
• Data Engineering experience in R&D for Biotechnology or pharma industry
• Demonstrated hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS) and the ability to architect cost-effective and scalable data solutions.
• Proficiency in Python, PySpark, SQL.
• Experience with dimensional data modeling.
• Experience working with Apache Spark, Apache Airflow.
• Experienced with software engineering best-practices, including but not limited to version control (Git, Subversion, etc.), CI/CD (Jenkins, Maven etc.), automated unit testing, and Dev Ops.
• Experienced with AWS or GCP or Azure cloud services.
• Understanding of end to end project/product life cycle
• Well versed with full stack development & DataOps automation, logging frameworks, and pipeline orchestration tools.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to address complex data challenges.
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills to collaborate with cross-functional teams.

Good-to-Have Skills:

• Data Engineering Management experience in Biotech/Pharma is a plus
• Experience using graph databases such as Stardog or Marklogic or Neo4J or Allegrograph, etc.

Education and Professional Certifications

• Masters degree with 10 - 12 + years of experience in Computer Science, IT or related field
• OR
• Bachelors degree with 8 -10 + years of experience in Computer Science, IT or related field
• AWS Certified Data Engineer preferred
• Databricks Certificate preferred
• Scaled Agile SAFe certification preferred
• Project Management certifications preferred

Soft Skills:

• Excellent analytical and troubleshooting skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to work effectively with global, virtual teams
• High degree of initiative and self-motivation
• Ability to manage multiple priorities successfully
• Team-oriented, with a focus on achieving team goals
• Strong presentation and public speaking skills.