Technical Lead - Data Engineering (HR Data Platform)

About the Role
You'll lead the technical design and delivery of an HR data platform for one of Australia's largest universities. This is a high-impact leadership role building a Snowflake-on-AWS data pipeline that will serve HR analytics and business intelligence across the entire organisation.
You're not coding in isolation. You're architecting systems, mentoring engineers and shaping how the university manages and uses HR data for years to come.

What You'll Do

Day-to-Day:

- Design the data architecture for HR analytics - deciding what gets extracted, how it's modeled, where it lives and who can access it
- Lead the heavy pipeline work - building and optimising ETL/ELT processes on Snowflake that ingest data from HR systems and prepare it for analytics
- Mentor 4 Data Engineers - helping them level up, unblocking technical problems and making sure work ships on time and to standard
- Set governance & quality standards - deciding how we tag data, control access, handle sensitive information and keep data clean
- Work with business & tech leadership - translating HR team needs into technical roadmaps and flagging risks/trade-offs early

Key Responsibilities

- Lead data platform design for HR (Phase 1 already scoped; Phase 2+ to follow)
- Own ETL/ELT pipeline development using Snowflake and Talend
- Build and guide a team of 4 Data Engineers with different specialisms (data modeling, pipeline build x2, governance/security)
- Embed data governance from day one - lineage, metadata, access control, data quality




- Manage stakeholder relationships with HR teams to understand requirements and priorities
- Lead DevOps and CI/CD for data pipeline deploymentsMaintain platform reliability - keeping systems running, identifying issues and fixing them fast

What We're Looking For

Must-Haves:

- 5+ years building and shipping data platforms (ETL, ELT, data warehousing) - ideally with Snowflake or modern cloud data stack
- Proven team leadership - you've mentored or led 2–3+ engineers through delivery; you know how to unblock people and raise capability
- Data governance and quality mindset - you care about lineage, metadata, data quality, and access control, not just 'building pipes'
- Strong technical depth in at least one: Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, or equivalent contemporary data warehouse
- Ability to communicate clearly across technical and non-technical audiences

Nice-to-Haves:

- Snowflake on AWS experience
- Talend or Collibra (metadata/governance tools)
- ETL tool experience (Informatica, DataStax, custom)
- HR or Workday data experience
- Experience in university or higher education settings

What Else You Should Know

- Frameworks are already in place - you're not building from scratch; you're extending proven patterns
- This is a governance-first culture - data security and quality matter as much as velocity
- Team independence is key - we want you to build engineers who don't need you for every decision by month 2
- Extension is likely - Phase 1 is 6 months, but the program runs to 2028; strong candidates often transition into Phase 2+ roles
- Hybrid flexibility - We trust you to manage your time; 2–3 days on campus is the expectation, not the ceiling

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📌 Technical Lead - Data Engineering (HR Data Platform) (City of Sydney)
🏢 Bluefin Resources
📍 City of Sydney