Director of Data Platform Engineering, Simple Machines
More information about location
2-3 days a week in office
Data-driven platforms & applications
Be an early applicant
Data-driven platforms & applications
21-100 employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
2-3 days a week in office
21-100 employees
Company mission
To architect and engineer highly performant, distributed, data driven platforms and machine learning applications that perform at massive scale.
Role
Who you are
- The role requires someone equally comfortable operating at executive, architectural, commercial, and delivery levels
- We are looking for a leader who understands where enterprise data platforms are heading over the next five years, not where they were five years ago
- 10+ years’ experience across data engineering, data platforms, analytics engineering, or data architecture
- Proven consultancy and enterprise client-facing experience
- Strong pre-sales, proposal development, and solution shaping capability
- Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering modern cloud-native data platforms at enterprise scale
- Strong experience developing solutions centred around data products and reusable enterprise data capabilities
- Deep understanding of data mesh principles, federated governance, and scalable domain-oriented data ownership models
- Experience designing platforms and architectures to support AI-native use cases, machine learning systems, agentic workflows, and intelligent software platforms
- Strong understanding of real-time and event-driven architectures, including streaming data systems and low-latency processing patterns
- Experience building platforms that support governed, discoverable, reusable, and operationalised data products across large organisations
- Familiarity with contemporary data stack technologies and modern engineering practices
- Strong understanding of platform architecture, distributed data systems, orchestration, governance, and scalable data product design
- Experience with technologies and ecosystems such as GCP, AWS, Azure, Databricks, Snowflake, Kafka, Spark, dbt, Kubernetes, Airflow, ML/AI enablement, or similar modern platform tooling
- Strong commercial acumen and ability to engage credibly with senior technical and business stakeholders
- Experience leading major enterprise initiatives and high-performing engineering teams
- Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, high-performance consultancy environment
- We are looking for someone who combines strong technical depth with commercial and strategic capability. This is not purely a delivery management role, nor is it purely architectural. The ideal person will have a strong point of view on the future of enterprise data platforms, modern data operating models, and the convergence of data engineering and AI enablement
- They should be comfortable moving between executive conversations, whiteboarding architecture, shaping proposals, mentoring teams, and helping clients navigate complex transformation programs
What the job involves
- We are looking for a senior data leader to join Simple Machines in London as part of our Global Data Practice leadership team
- This is a strategic and hands-on leadership role focused on helping shape the future direction of our data platform capability across the UK and Europe
- The individual will play a key role in defining our propositions, strengthening our technical capability, and helping clients modernise their data ecosystems for an AI-native future
- Part of the Global Data Practice leadership team
- Helping define and evolve Simple Machines’ data platform propositions, technical direction, and strategic positioning
- Advising enterprise clients on modern data platform strategy, architecture, operating models, and AI readiness
- Supporting organisations as they evolve from traditional centralised data platforms toward AI-native, real-time, and data product-oriented operating models
- Working closely with Engagement Managers and senior leadership across major strategic initiatives
- Leading architecture and technical direction for complex enterprise data platform and transformation programs
- Acting as a senior technical counterpart across strategic client engagements and partner relationships
- Pre-sales, proposal development, technical solution shaping, and executive stakeholder engagement
- Building trusted relationships with strategic technology partners and staying current with emerging platform capabilities and market direction
- Supporting recruitment, mentoring, capability uplift, and practice development across the broader engineering organisation
- Leading major client initiatives across data engineering, platform modernisation, AI enablement, and operational data systems
- Contributing to thought leadership, market positioning, and growth initiatives across the UK and Europe
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Many organisations struggle to unlock the true potential of their data. This data, often vast and complex, can hold valuable insights but requires the right tools and expertise to be harnessed effectively.
Simple Machines step in to address this challenge. Its team of global specialists, combining creative and expert technologists, unlock the true potential of data. It designs and builds custom data platforms, intelligent systems, and unique software products tailored to each client's specific needs. This allows organisations to "engineer data to life", transforming raw information into actionable insights that drive real-world impact.
Simple Machines leverages its expertise with leading technology providers like Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Azure to build robust and scalable solutions. This, coupled with its diverse partnerships with enterprises, governments, and technology companies, allows the company to stay at the forefront of the ever-evolving data landscape.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Company benefits
- Generous parental leave: Three months’ fully paid primary carer leave and one month fully paid secondary carer leave, subject to a minimum 12 month tenure
- Flexible working: Want to work from home or leave early to pick up the kids? Need to start early some days, later on others? No problem!
- "Your day": One day per year, in addition to annual leave days that you can take off with no explanation required
- Employee assistance programme
- Upskill - Learning and development: We all love continually learning and have a generous budget for you to upskill, join conferences, get certified and qualified
Company HQ
Darlinghurst, NSW
Leadership
Daniel Pritchard
(CEO)Previously Founder and Director of BangTango, Managing Director at Jive.
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