ETL Data Engineering Lead
Position Summary
We are seeking a Lead ETL Data Engineer to bring structure, stability, and strategic direction to a rapidly evolving data organization. This is a leadership-focused role rather than a hands-on coding position - the ideal candidate is a technically strong engineer who has transitioned into people and process leadership and thrives in "ground zero" environments where teams, standards, and architecture must be built from scratch. You will guide a talented but overwhelmed team of engineers through a large-scale post-merger data platform integration, establishing the practices that will scale the organization for years to come.
Engagement Details
- Location: Fully remote (anywhere in the U.S.); leadership team based in Dallas, TX
- Engagement Type: 6+ month contract-to-hire
Key Responsibilities
Team Leadership & Development
- Lead, mentor, and develop a team of data engineers and a data architect, providing clear direction to individuals who are ready to operate within a more formalized structure.
- Upskill existing engineers, identify skill gaps, and create growth pathways.
- Establish team rituals, ownership models, and engineering best practices.
Technical Strategy & Architecture
- Define and drive the technical strategy for the ETL/data platform organization.
- Champion proactive data quality monitoring, automated deployments (CI/CD), and stronger data architecture practices.
- Partner with the data architect to modernize and stabilize existing pipelines and platforms.
Stabilization & Process Building
- Transition the team from a reactive, "firefighting" posture to a proactive, engineering-first culture.
- Build repeatable processes for incident response, release management, monitoring, and data governance.
- Reduce technical debt and manual intervention through automation and improved architectural patterns.
Post-Merger Data Integration
- Provide leadership across an ongoing enterprise data platform integration initiative.
- Guide the unification of two largely separate data platforms into a cohesive, scalable, enterprise-grade environment.
Current Environment
- The organization is actively integrating two large enterprise data ecosystems following a recent merger.
- Two distinct data platforms with minimal integration to date.
- Existing systems were built quickly and lack formal architecture, resulting in frequent failures, heavy manual intervention, and limited scalability.
- The current team includes a data architect and strong engineers, but they are stretched thin managing production issues.
- Engineers are eager for leadership, structure, and a clear technical vision.
Required Qualifications
- Proven leadership experience managing and developing data engineering teams (critical).
- Experience operating within large-scale enterprise environments.
- Demonstrated ability to build teams, processes, and technical strategy from scratch.
- Strong technical foundation in ETL, data engineering, and modern data platform architecture - sufficient to guide architectural decisions and mentor senior engineers.
- Experience driving data quality, CI/CD for data pipelines, and scalable architecture practices.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with data platform integration or post-merger / M&A environments.
- Background in the home services industry or comparable field-operations-driven businesses.
- Familiarity with cloud data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, AWS) and modern orchestration/observability tooling.
What Success Looks Like (First 6 Months)
- A formalized, well-structured data engineering team with clear roles and ownership.
- Measurable reduction in production incidents and manual interventions.
- Established standards for data quality monitoring, deployment automation, and architectural review.
- A credible, executable roadmap for unifying the two enterprise data platforms.
Title ETL Data Engineering Lead
Location Remote
Client Industry Franchise
Compensation $100-150/hr
About Korn Ferry
Korn Ferry unleashes potential in people, teams, and organizations. We work with our clients to design optimal organization structures, roles, and responsibilities. We help them hire the right people and advise them on how to reward and motivate their workforce while developing professionals as they navigate and advance their careers. To learn more, please visit Korn Ferry at www.Kornferry.com
