Lead the design and delivery of data platforms and pipelines ensuring data quality and governance while mentoring engineering teams and optimizing costs.

About the team
Field domain data team build and manage data pipelines create pipelines to collect data from multiple sources (databases APIs files) transform and move data into storage systems (Data Mesh/data lakes / warehouses) Automate ETL (Extract Transform Load) workflows. Design scalable data architecture systems that can handle large-scale data reliably and efficiently. Ensure data quality governance & security validate and clean incoming data apply governance policies (who can access what) maintain compliance and security controls.We work with other teams across organization collaborate with Product/ business teams (to understand data needs) Data scientists (to support ML/AI use cases) DevOps / platform teams.
What You'll do- Lead the design and delivery of end-to-end data platforms and pipelines (batch and streaming) using AWS services to support analytics reporting ML and operational use cases.- Define and own data architecture decisions standards and best practices. Produce and maintain Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) runbooks and high-quality diagrams.- Architect and implement data lake and/or data warehouse solutions (ingestion storage transformation serving) using S3 Glue Redshift Athena and related services.- Build and optimize ETL/ELT workflows with Spark Glue Lambda Step Functions and orchestration frameworks (Airflow Dagster).- Design and operate streaming ingestion and processing using Kinesis MSK and Kafka ecosystems; collaborate on re-architecture efforts to reduce cost and improve resilience.- Drive data modeling schema design partitioning and query optimization for large data sets to meet performance and cost targets.- Establish and operationalize data quality validation observability lineage and metadata practices (Glue Data Catalog Data Hub/Amundsen or equivalent).- Implement robust security governance and compliance controls (IAM Lake Formation KMS VPC data masking/security scanning) and collaborate with security and privacy teams.- Champion cost optimization across the data stack (serverless architectures right-sizing Graviton/spot/commitment strategies) and provide continuous cost governance.- Own production reliability: monitoring SLIs/SLOs incident response postmortems and continuous improvements.- Lead and mentor engineers run design reviews and promote cross-team collaboration with product analytics ML and platform teams.- Influence roadmap capacity planning and hiring for the data engineering function; represent the team in senior technical forums.What You'll bring to the role- 7+ years of hands-on experience in data engineering architecting and operating data platforms at scale.- Demonstrated leadership on large complex data projects and strong ability to influence technical and product stakeholders.- Extensive hands-on experience with AWS data services: S3 Glue Redshift (Spectrum/RA3) Athena EMR Lambda Kinesis/MSK DMS.- Strong programming skills in Python and/or Scala (or Java); proven track record writing production-quality testable code.- Deep expertise in SQL with experience designing and optimizing queries for high-volume data.- Experience with distributed processing frameworks (Spark) and modern ETL/ELT patterns.- Proficiency with orchestration and workflow tools (Airflow Step Functions Dagster) and CI/CD for data pipelines.- Strong skills in infrastructure-as-code (Terraform CloudFormation or CDK) and GitOps practices.- Experience implementing data security governance and access controls at scale.- Expertise in observability monitoring and incident management (CloudWatch Prometheus Grafana structured logging tracing).- Excellent communication skills and proven ability to mentor and lead engineers.Preferred Qualifications- AWS certifications (e.g. AWS Certified Data Analytics - Specialty AWS Certified Solutions Architect) or equivalent.- Experience with data lakehouse technologies (Delta Lake Iceberg Databricks Unity Catalog) and large-scale performance troubleshooting.- Familiarity with metadata and lineage tooling (Amundsen DataHub OpenLineage).- Prior experience with cost-optimization programs (Graviton serverless spot instances) and demonstrable results.- Contributions to open-source projects publications or conference presentations on data engineering topics.- Experience working in regulated industries (finance healthcare) and implementing compliance controls.
-AI usage for building Data Pipelines.Skills You'll have- Strategic thinker with strong problem-solving and architectural judgment.- Ability to manage multiple complex priorities and deliver high-quality work under deadlines.- Strong mentoring and team leadership skills; fosters a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.- Customer-focused: translates business needs into pragmatic maintainable technical solutions.- Strong attention to detail excellent documentation habits and commitment to operational excellence.
Compensation Range:
Pay Range - Start:
$118960.00
Pay Range - End:
$178440.00
Geographic Specific Pay Structure:
Structure 110:
$130880.00 USD - $196320.00 USD
Structure 115:
$136800.00 USD - $205200.00 USD
We believe in fairness and transparency. It's why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However final salaries are based on a number of factors including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you're living in California New York City or other eligible location geographic specific pay structures compensation and benefits could be applicable click here to learn more.
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Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas seek challenges assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.
Skills
Analytical Thinking (NM) - Advanced Customer Centricity (NM) - Advanced Strategic Thinking (NM) - Advanced Application Security (NM) - Advanced Talent Development & Planning (NM) - Beginner Root Cause Analysis & Decision Quality (NM) - Advanced Release Management (NM) - Advanced Cross Functional Partnering & Planning (NM) - Intermediate Cloud Technology (NM) - Intermediate DevOps (NM) - Advanced Accountability (NM) - Beginner Software Problem Solving (NM) - Advanced Business Application (NM) - Intermediate Technical Problem Solving (NM) - Advanced Coaching & Mentoring (NM) - Intermediate IT Strategy (NM) - Intermediate Adaptive Communication (NM) - Advanced Software Development (NM) - Advanced Data Literacy (NM) - Advanced Learning Agility & Critical Thinking (NM) - Advanced Application Performance Management (NM) - Intermediate
FIND YOUR FUTURE
We're excited about the potential people bring to Northwestern Mutual. You can grow your career here while enjoying first-class perks benefits and our commitment to a culture of belonging.

• Flexible work schedules
• Concierge service
• Comprehensive benefits
• Employee resource groups