Senior Manager, Data Engineering & Delivery; Pod Lead

Senior Manager, Data Engineering & Delivery (Pod Lead)
Join Definity as a Senior Manager, Data Engineering & Delivery (Pod Lead). In this role you will lead Data Pods, guide a multidisciplinary team of data professionals, and ensure the timely and high‑quality delivery of data products that drive business value.

What can you expect in this role?

Data Pod Leadership:

Lead and manage one or more Data Pods, which comprise a cross‑functional team of data engineers, analysts, data scientists, and other required resources.

Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and high‑performance culture within your pods, empowering team members and promoting continuous learning.

Oversee resource management, hiring, onboarding, and talent development within your teams.

Drive accountability for the quality, timeliness, and success of all data products delivered by your pods.

End-to-End Data Product Delivery:

Take full ownership of the data product lifecycle, from initial ideation and user story definition through development, testing, deployment, and ongoing maintenance.

Ensure the technical excellence of data solutions, including data ingestion, transformation, modeling, and consumption, adhering to best practices.

Champion the implementation of robust data quality frameworks and monitoring.

Manage the technical roadmap for your assigned data products, ensuring alignment with broader organizational data strategy.

Business Collaboration & Requirements Management:

Partner closely with business stakeholders to understand their needs, gather requirements, and translate them into actionable user stories and technical specifications.

Facilitate prioritisation of features and initiatives with business leads and product owners, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and OKRs.

Communicate effectively with stakeholders regarding project status, challenges, and roadmap updates, managing expectations proactively.

Technical Strategy &

Innovation:

Contribute to the development and execution of the overall Cloud data platform strategy, vision, and framework.

Stay abreast of emerging Big Data technologies and methodologies, identifying opportunities to leverage new tools and techniques to enhance our data capabilities.

Drive innovation in data ingestion, curation, and consumption insights.

Stakeholder Management & Partnership:

Collaborate effectively with functional leads across Product, Design, Engineering, and Data & Insights to set strategic direction and achieve shared goals.

Represent the data engineering function in cross‑organizational initiatives.

What do you bring to the role?

Experience:

8+ years of progressive experience in Data warehouse, Big Data, and Data Analysis domains.

4+ years of proven experience in team management and people leadership, ideally within a distributed or agile environment.

Demonstrated experience leading cross‑functional teams to deliver end‑to‑end data products.

Experience in defining and executing product roadmaps and prioritising backlogs with business stakeholders.

Experience with P&C Insurance Data domain an advantage.

Technical

Skills:

Hands‑on experience and deep knowledge of Big Data systems like Hadoop, Big Query, Snowflake, etc.

Proficiency with programming languages such as Python, and experience with Databricks, Dataflow, or other relevant ETL/ELT tools.

Familiarity with message queuing technologies like Kafka or Pub/Sub.

Experience with cloud computing platforms (Google Cloud Platform a strong plus), distributed systems, and data warehousing/data lake concepts.

Understanding of operational tools and systems (e.g., Guidewire, Claims, Policy management systems, Call centers, Service Now).

Leadership &

Soft Skills:

Exceptional problem‑solving abilities with a knack for diving deep into complex issues and formulating pragmatic solutions.

Strong communication, collaboration, and influencing skills, with the ability to work effectively with global teams and diverse stakeholders.

A passion for building and nurturing high‑performing, inclusive teams.

A strategic mindset with the ability to balance speed to market with robust, scalable solutions.

A strong understanding of data governance, data quality, and data privacy…