Lead Data Engineer

Walker Sands is hiring a Lead Data Engineer to lead and strengthen the data infrastructure supporting client reporting, measurement, internal operations, and AI-driven work. The role combines hands-on data engineering with technical strategy, governance, and building a data support team.

Responsibilities:

• Build and maintain pipelines and dbt models in Snowflake that are tested, documented, and trusted
• Integrate data from paid media, web analytics, SEO, CRM, and business systems using tools like Fivetran or Airbyte and direct APIs
• Find and fix breaks at the root, before an account team or client finds them
• Maintain data governance: access controls, privacy, and consent requirements
• Structure and document data so AI agents can use it reliable: clear semantic layers, consistent definitions, and metadata that tells an agent what a table or metric actually means
• Build governed access patterns for agentic tools (scoped, read-only, permission aware) so agents only query the data they're allowed to, and their answers can be traced back to the source
• Work with the SVP, DATA on architecture, roadmap, and build-vs-buy-vs-partner decisions
• Translate business and client needs into data designs that hold up, and push back when a request won't
• Make data usable for analysts, reporting, and AI-driven tools through well-modeled, well-governed layers
• Build and lead a small data support team handling tier 1 and tier 2 triage, including the playbooks and escalation paths behind it
• Eventually build out the team as needed for various functions to drive better accuracy, performance and data tools for the business

Requirements:

• You've spent 7+ years in data engineering, enough of it in lean environments where you owned real things without much hand-holding
• You can go deep on a broken pipeline in the morning and talk through a roadmap tradeoff in the afternoon, and you're good at both
• You are a clear communicator, and work to understand needs beyond the technical with empathy and a ‘here's what's possible' mindset
• You find problems, fix them, document them, and explain them without making them more complicated than they need to be
• 7+ years in data or analytics engineering, including time as the lead or senior technical owner on a production data platform
• Deep, hands-on Snowflake experience
• Strong dbt, advanced SQL, and working Python
• Experience integrating SaaS and marketing APIs (ad platforms, GA4, Salesforce, HubSpot) through ELT tools and custom pipelines
• A track record of shaping technical direction, not just executing tickets
• Clear communication with technical and non-technical people alike
• Agency or B2B marketing data background
• Data governance and privacy experience (role-based access, masking, consent data)
• Experience making data usable for AI and LLM-driven tools
• Experience leading or mentoring others
• Comfortable using AI like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and bringing new ways of working within the data and privacy guardrails of the business