Data Engineering Manager

Job Title: Data Engineering Manager

Job Type: Full Time, Permanent

Location: London, Hybrid

Role Purpose

At Travelex we are developing modern data technology and data products. Data is central to the way we define and sell our foreign currency exchange products. Our relationship with our customers is deeply data-driven.

The data engineering manager (DEM) owns the design and delivery of all data flows to and from our data platform, underpinning crucial data products. The DEM is responsible for a significant transformation Travelex is going through, with event-driven and transactional enhancements to our enterprise data architecture, alongside expansion of our data warehousing function to support a wide range of data integrations.

Main Responsibilities:

Leadership & Strategy

• Work with the Director of Data Engineering and IT Leadership to enhance the company's data maturity.
• Maintain strong business alignment by engaging with leaders across domains and geographies.
• Ensure data engineering initiatives match evolving business priorities.
• Promote a product mindset, balancing technical efficiency with clear business value.

Team Management

• Lead the Data Engineering team, providing supervision, coaching, and professional development.
• Work with the Data Delivery Manager to improve team productivity and velocity.
• Oversee planning sessions, standups, retros, and team meetings.
• Define and deliver technical goals & OKRs in collaboration with the teams.

Technical Leadership

• Own the architecture of the company's data platform, ensuring scalability, reliability, and security.
• Drive modernisation by transitioning from legacy systems to a lean, scalable platform.
• Act as a lead expert for technologies such as AWS, DBT, Airflow, and Databricks.
• Establish best practices for data modelling, ingestion, storage, streaming, and APIs.

Governance & Standards

• Ensure all technical decisions are well-justified, documented, and aligned with business needs.
• Lead reviews and approvals for Data Engineering, Data Science, and Data Visualization projects via data architecture review board.
• Promote best practices in data governance, security, data protection, and risk management.

Operational Excellence

• Oversee monitoring of live data products and lead response to data incidents.
• Drive improvements in data quality, working with data owners and managers.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure seamless system integration.
• Advocate for reducing technical debt while balancing resource constraints.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement

• Stay updated with industry trends and recommend relevant technologies.
• Lead analysis, assessment, and design activities, influencing key decisions.
• Foster collaboration with data analysts and data scientists to develop impactful data products.

Requirements – Skills and Experience

To qualify for the DEM role, experience and skills from the list below are required.

Essential:

• Strong leadership: An inspirational leader, engaging team player, and curious listener.
• Excellent problem-solving skills with experience in complex data products.
• Expertise in data engineering and cloud engineering, including data ingestion, transformation, and storage.
• Significant hands-on experience with AWS and its data services.
• Expert-level skills in SQL, Python, DBT, Airflow and Redshift.
• Confidence in coding, scripting, configuring, versioning, debugging, testing, and deploying.
• Ability to guide and mentor others in technical best practices.
• A product mindset, focusing on user needs when designing deliverables.
• Experience in designing technology solutions with complex end-to-end data flows.
• Experience in implementing data governance, including data cataloging, data lineage tracking, and metadata management to ensure data accuracy, accessibility, and compliance.

Preferred:

• Experience with Databricks
• Understanding of how data platforms interact with marketing and customer engagement platforms.
• Knowledge of service-oriented architecture, including exposing and consuming data via APIs, streams, and webhooks.
• Good understanding of security and data protection best practices.
• Familiarity with compliance and regulations, such as GDPR, PCI and FCA.
• The flexibility to adjust your delivery approach to business needs, including mixing elements of Kanban, Scrum, Lean and our own custom practices.
• The passion to stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in your field, exploring new tools and methodologies.
• The curiosity to understand the business, its requirements and culture.
• Your own unique style or way of working, which will make our team diverse and original.

Why Travelex?

To remain the world’s leading foreign exchange specialist, we are focused on making our customers’ lives simpler, more engaging and hassle free while they travel or move money abroad. We promise to give them the freedom and peace of mind to explore the world, their way – enabling them to travel confidently because they know they have us to lean on.

Customer centricity and digital are at the heart of our business strategy. Our commitment to innovation has never been greater, with the development of several digital-first, greenfield products and services. And with the Travelex's resources, deep industry experience and leading brand we are inventing the future of FX, cross-border e-commerce, and international payments.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.