Data Engineering Manager (hands‑on) – Manchester

About the role

This is a hands‑on leadership position at the centre of a major data platform transformation for a hyper‑growth business in Manchester. You will lead the data engineering squad, delivering the infrastructure, pipelines and reporting capabilities the organisation relies on while guiding the shift from batch to real‑time, event‑driven processing.

Key responsibilities

• Lead, coach and develop a data engineering team, conducting performance reviews and career planning.
• Design, build and maintain data pipelines, cloud infrastructure and reporting layers.
• Drive migration toward a real‑time, event‑driven architecture while keeping existing SQL Server environments stable.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across the business to translate requirements into scalable solutions.
• Champion engineering best practices such as CI/CD, IaC and Agile methodologies.

Required profile

• Proven people‑management and team‑leadership experience.
• Strong background in cloud data engineering on AWS (non‑negotiable).
• Deep knowledge of SQL/T‑SQL and ETL/ELT tooling (SSIS, Matillion or similar).
• Experience with infrastructure‑as‑code tools (Terraform or equivalent) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Ability to manage stakeholder expectations and deliver reliable data solutions.

Required skills

• AWS
• SQL
• T‑SQL
• SSIS
• Matillion
• Terraform
• CI/CD
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

What we offer

• Salary up to £88,000 per year.
• Hybrid working – 3 days onsite in Manchester city centre.
• 27 days holiday plus bank holidays, birthday off, enhanced parental leave.
• Income protection, life assurance, health cash plan, virtual GP and therapy access.
• Gym discounts, cycle‑to‑work scheme, free food and Friday bar.