Data Lead

Employment Type: Full-time

Reporting to: Head of AI Transformation

Scope: UK and US markets, across all business functions

Preference: Candidates with experience supporting UK businesses or working with UK market data.

We are hiring a hands-on Data Lead for a fast-growing wellness beverage brand operating across the UK and US.

You will take ownership of the company's data architecture, quality, governance and reporting, bringing information from sales, marketing, retail, finance and supply chain systems into a reliable central warehouse.

This is a build-and-lead role. You will work directly on architecture, pipelines and data models while building and managing a small team, including offshore data engineers. You will help establish consistent business metrics and enable teams to use trusted data for reporting, planning and AI-powered analysis.

Data Ownership and Governance

• Own data quality, definitions and availability across the business.
• Establish consistent definitions for core metrics, including revenue, contribution margin, customer acquisition cost and retention.
• Set access controls and governance standards to protect sensitive business and customer information.
• Implement testing and reconciliation processes to ensure reporting matches source systems and Finance.
• Turn recurring business questions into reliable, self-service reporting.

Data Architecture and Engineering

• Lead the implementation of a Snowflake warehouse alongside implementation partners.
• Design raw, cleaned and modelled data layers that support reporting, planning and analysis.
• Own the dbt transformation layer, including model development, testing, documentation and deployment.
• Build and maintain pipelines connecting e-commerce, marketplace, advertising, CRM, finance and operations systems.
• Assess existing BigQuery infrastructure and plan its migration or integration with Snowflake.
• Monitor pipeline reliability, freshness and cost, resolving the root causes of data issues.
• Use AI coding tools to accelerate development, testing and documentation, with appropriate human review.

Retail and Commercial Analytics

• Consolidate UK and US retailer sales, EPOS, distribution and syndicated market data.
• Work with retailer portals and data providers such as Circana, NielsenIQ, SPINS and Numerator.
• Automate manual data imports wherever source systems and permissions allow.
• Combine retail, DTC and marketplace data to provide a clear view of performance by product, channel and market.
• Enable reporting on rate of sale, distribution, promotions and market share.
• Support analysis of how marketing activity influences retail sales.

Team and Partner Management

• Hire, manage and develop a small data team, including remote or offshore engineers.
• Establish standards for code reviews, documentation, testing and delivery.
• Maintain a prioritised roadmap based on business impact.
• Manage implementation partners and data vendors against clear deliverables.

Business Reporting and AI Enablement

• Move recurring reporting from manual spreadsheets to warehouse-backed dashboards and reports.
• Work closely with Digital, Finance, Commercial and Supply Chain teams to understand their needs.
• Prepare clean, documented data models that people and authorised AI tools can query reliably.
• Present findings clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
• Train teams to use reporting tools and answer their own business questions.

• Typically five or more years of experience in data engineering, analytics engineering or related roles, including team leadership.
• Hands-on production experience with Snowflake.
• Strong dbt experience, covering modelling, testing, documentation and deployment.
• Advanced SQL and practical Python skills for pipelines and automation.
• Experience building integrations using Fivetran, Airbyte or custom connectors.
• Experience working with retail EPOS, retailer portal or syndicated market data.
• A track record of building and managing data teams.
• Experience implementing data governance, access controls and consistent metric definitions.
• Regular use of AI development tools such as Claude, Cursor or GitHub Copilot, with the ability to validate their output.
• Strong attention to detail and a disciplined approach to checking and reconciling numbers.
• Clear communication skills and confidence working with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working with UK businesses, UK retail data or UK consumer markets is preferred.

• Experience in e-commerce, DTC, FMCG, food, beverages or wellness.
• Familiarity with Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop and advertising platform data.
• Experience with BigQuery, Google Cloud or warehouse migrations.
• Experience managing offshore or remote data engineers.
• Experience connecting warehouses to planning, forecasting or finance tools.
• Experience connecting AI assistants or LLMs to company data.
• Familiarity with Power BI, Looker or similar BI platforms.
• Exposure to US retail and marketplace data.

You do not need experience with every tool listed. We are interested in what you have built, how you lead and how you solve business problems using data.

Please share your CV and a brief overview of relevant projects, including the data platforms you have built, your hands-on contribution and any teams you have managed. Highlight experience with Snowflake, dbt, retail data and UK markets.