Data Engineering Manager

About Brussels Airlines

Brussels Airlines, part of the Lufthansa Group, is the national airline of Belgium with its home base at Brussels Airport.
Our mission is to be the most reliable airline, making everyone feel at home.
We are passionate about what we do, whether it’s on board, in an office, in the hangar or at an airport. Our people are recognized for always going above and beyond and for constantly challenging themselves.

The Data Engineering Manager oversees a team responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining data pipelines, the data warehouse, and overall infrastructure. The Data Engineering collaborates with the Data Reporting & Products department to understand company/departmental data requirements and develop high-quality data solutions meeting the business needs. While the Data Reporting & Products department focuses on front-end user support, reporting, data analysis, product ownership, and governance; the Engineering team takes care of the back-end data systems, ensuring performance, scalability, and data reliability. The current data platform accommodates data via 200 reports/solutions to ±300 users ranging from operational stakeholders to Management, via a Central Data Warehouse containing data of various source systems. The company is planning a cloud migration starting in 2024, in which the Data Engineering Manager plays a crucial role, guiding the team from the AS-IS platform towards the future cloud platform, and making sure the new technology is well embedded. This function reports to the Head of Business Intelligence.

Tasks

1. Overseeing the Data Engineering Team
   As a Team Manager you orchestrate and coordinate the efforts of individual team members towards achieving common goals, fostering collaboration and cohesion.
   

• Provide mentorship and guidance to the team and individual team members (3 to 5 FTE).
• Manage external partnerships, allowing to extend the team when required.
• Develop the Engineering team setup (internal/external) in the next years in line with company’s needs; presenting and defending your proposals for the different Management Boards.
• Define, align, and oversee the Data Engineering Governance.
• Assist the Head of Business Intelligence in the overall development of the Business Intelligence Team.
  

2. Maintain, adapt, and steer the current Data Platform
   More than 300 users are today enjoying data via our platforms. Together with the team you are responsible for maintaining the existing data pipelines and products.
   

• Maintain and steer the current data pipelines and warehouse to ensure reliable data delivery within the company. Current platform is an on-premise Microsoft SQL Server data warehouse, utilizing SSIS among other tools.
• Monitor the performance of the data platform components, identifying bottlenecks, steer to optimize queries, processes, and configurations to improve performance.
• Guide the team for required changes on the current platform, e.g. when important source systems are being changed within the company, requiring adaptation of the pipelines.
• Lead the overall documentation of the architecture, configurations, and processes of the data platform. Facilitate knowledge sharing among team members to ensure continuity and efficiency.

3. Lead the change towards the Azure Cloud Platform
   As we are planning to migrate our data platform to the cloud, you set out the guidelines and actions to run this project successfully.
   

• Collaborating with key stakeholders to define the organization's cloud adoption strategy, including goals, timelines, and resource requirements.
• Define and align the internal data platform with the existing Lufthansa Group Azure platform, taking into account some data requirements are similar LHG group-wide, while other data requirements are 100% local.

Develop migration plans to move existing data assets and applications to Azure, considering factors such as data residency, available manpower, compatibility and dependencies. Leading the execution of migration efforts, coordinating within the team and external stakeholders, ensuring minimal disruption to business operations.

Your profile

• University degree of any kind, combined with proven relevant Data Engineering track-record of minimum 5 years.
• Proven team lead experience: providing direction, setting goals, managing priorities.
• Experience as Data Project Lead.
• Experience in recruiting, hiring, and mentoring data engineering talent (optional).
• Experience in data solution delivery within a larger organization (+250 people).
• Strong understanding of data engineering concepts, tools, and technologies, including databases, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes, data warehousing, data modelling, and data pipelines.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, and their relevant services for data processing and storage. Ideally combined with knowledge of MS SQL server.
• Strong understanding of database systems, both relational (e.g. SQL databases) and NoSQL.
• Programming skills in languages commonly used in data engineering such as Python, Java, Scala, or SQL.
• Experience with DataOPS, Scrum, and overall Sprint Planning.
• Expertise in big data technologies and frameworks such as Hadoop, Spark, and Kafka.
• Experience in data migration exercises, or being confident to lead such exercise thanks to built-up experience.
• Ability to design scalable and efficient data architectures to support the organization's data needs.
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration tools like Docker and Kubernetes for deploying and managing data engineering applications.
• Understanding of data governance, data security, and compliance regulations.
• Team player: fostering collaboration of own team with data analysts, data product owner, and other crucial stakeholders.
• Excellent organizational skills: Able to keep a team aligned and working towards shared goals.
• Ability to interact with a variety of stakeholders: data professionals, business stakeholders, top Management.
• Strong Business Acumen: Understanding of the business domain and how data engineering supports business objectives.
• Strong conceptual capabilities, enabling to quickly translate business requirements into data development plans.
• Effective communication skills to articulate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and to foster collaboration within the team.
• Fluent in English – spoken and written. Any other language is an asset.

What we offer

• A flexible reward plan that allows you to optimize part of your salary;
• A flexible work environment focused on activity-based working & home office possibility;
• Travel benefits;
• Company car (or car allowance);
• Profit sharing;
• Group insurance;
• Company medical plan (optional);
• Meal- & eco vouchers;
• Representation & homeworking allowance;
• A spot in a very enthusiastic team & a great company to work for.