Tech Lead - Data Engineering

About Us

SuperAwesome powers the youth digital ecosystem, bringing together proprietary ad and gaming products, audience insights and compliance capabilities to build a safer internet for the next generation. We lead the market at the intersection of technology, law, media and policy, so working with us gives you a chance to shape the internet of the future.

Our award-winning technology, trusted by hundreds of brands and creators, enables safer and more effective digital engagement with almost half a billion young people worldwide every month. As specialists in the under-18 audience, we have to be as curious, fast-paced and creative as kids and teens.

At SuperAwesome, you’ll be encouraged to own your impact, make each other more awesome and evolve like a kid. At our core is the #SAFam, a community where every voice is valued, and diversity is celebrated. We prioritize individuality, fostering an inclusive workplace where everyone feels they truly belong.

What you’ll do?

Data is at the heart of everything we do at SuperAwesome.

As the Tech Lead of Data Engineering, you will shape how we collect, process, and use data across the organisation. You will lead a team of highly skilled engineers and act as the visible, proactive representative of the data function across the business.

You will collaborate closely with leaders across Engineering, Product, Architecture, Legal, Infosec and key business stakeholders. You will be responsible not only for defining the technical roadmap, but also for clearly communicating it, prioritising work into sprints, and ensuring the data team has a strong outward presence across the company.

You will embody SuperAwesome’s spirit of pace, curiosity and innovation, balancing this with the need for reliable and assured data and tools.

You will help lay the groundwork for AI-driven capabilities, enable teams to make data-driven decisions, and ensure we operate with a strong focus on data quality, governance, security and reliability.

In this role, you will be responsible for:

• Leadership, Ownership and Strategic Direction:

  • Serve as the visible, proactive representative of the Data Engineering team across the business.

  • Proactively engage stakeholders across multiple company functions/teams and time zones, ensuring expectations are set and met appropriately.

  • Own sprint planning, prioritisation, and structuring of roadmap items.

  • Translate business needs into technical strategy and align the team to deliver against organisational goals.

  • Champion a culture of ownership, clarity, and continuous improvement.

• Technical Direction, Architecture and Execution:

  • Define and own the strategic technical direction for the Data function.

  • Lead system design activities, ensuring alignment and feasibility.

  • Oversee ingestion, enrichment, transformation, and distribution systems within the data lake.

  • Ensure availability, reliability, and performance of data systems.

  • Work across the stack where necessary to drive impact.

• Data Quality, Governance, and Operational Excellence:

  • Implement strong data management and governance practices.

  • Develop and optimise Spark jobs, notebooks, and pipelines in Databricks.

  • Maintain high-quality documentation of all data workflows and decisions.

  • Support production systems through DataOps practices and on-call participation.

• Communication, Visibility and Cross-functional Alignment:

  • Regularly and proactively communicate plans, decisions, and strategy.

  • Ensure stakeholders know how to engage the data team and understand expectations.

  • Ensure data intake flows through the correct channels to increase transparency.

• Mentoring and Team Development:

  • Train and mentor engineers in best practices, quality, governance and communication.

  • Build a high-performing culture focused on empowerment, clarity, and accountability.

  • Uphold high standards for system quality, scalability, and maintainability.

About you:

• You have a track record of success in highly dynamic, fast-paced environments

• You understand that “perfection is the enemy of done” and are able to make judicious compromises to adapt to needs and circumstance

• You are comfortable and effective interacting directly with stakeholders around the business, not just your engineering peers

• You think creatively to solve problems and are not afraid to propose unconventional solutions

Important technologies:

• Expert understanding of Data pipeline design and implementation using Databricks, and Python (or Python derivative, like PySpark)

• Expert visualisation skills using Sisense and/or other visualisation tools

• Expert with SQL

• Expert understanding of Data management and/or Data governance (making sure the data is of expected volume, schema, etc.)

• Experience with modern cloud-based Data Engineering on AWS or other cloud platforms

Nice to have:

• Experience with Kedro on Databricks

• Experience in designing and implementing Data mesh

• Exposure to Airbyte reading from multiple different data sources

• Good understanding of microservices architecture principles