Data Platform Engineering Manager

We're building something better
This role is in NatWest Boxed
At NatWest Boxed, we're a high performing team that's always on the lookout for exceptional people. We encourage an inclusive and diverse working environment, where teamwork, input and collaboration is valued no matter your level.

Job description

This role is based in the United Kingdom and as such all normal working days must be carried out in the United Kingdom.



Join us as an Engineering Manager

• Identifying and solve engineering-wide challenges as they appear
• We'll look to you to deliver exceptionally high-quality work and empower engineers to make a big impact
• Investing in NatWest Boxed's overall platform architecture
• Ensuring the security of our systems and working practice

What you'll do

As a Data Platform Engineering Manager, you will take ownership of our data ecosystem, guiding a high-performing engineering squad to architect and maintain a robust platform that empowers every business unit to effectively ingest, manage, and leverage data for varied strategic requirements.

Day-to-day, you'll be:

• Leading, mentoring and growing a high-performing team of data engineers, shaping our hiring strategy and fostering a culture of innovation and ownership
• Defining the strategic vision and technical roadmap for our data platform, focusing on self-service, reliability, scalability, security, and user experience
• Critically evaluating architectural proposals and technical designs from the team, ensuring alignment with long-term business goals, platform vision, architecture and security
• Championing engineering excellence by embedding best practices for self-service platform engineering, CI/CD, and SRE, while owning the operational health of our platform through SLOs
• Collaborating with Product, Architecture, Analytics, Operations and Security teams to deliver a secure, robust platform that enables all groups to easily manage data within defined standards
• Driving projects from inception to delivery, taking into consideration the needs of your customers whilst fitting into the wider Platform strategy
• Engaging with clients and vendors on integration patterns and implementation

The skills you'll need

We're looking for someone with p roven experience leading, managing, and scaling high-performing data mesh architectures as well as the ability to connect technical architecture decisions directly to business outcomes; you understand the cost, risk, and revenue impact. It would be great if you had experience with FinTech / Banking and hands-on experience with programming languages such as Python or Go.

You'll also have:

• A strong technical background in cloud-native technologies (e.g., AWS, GCP), event streaming (Kafka), and data-mesh tooling
• Deep understanding of modern platform engineering principles, including infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform, Crossplane), data streaming platforms, data transformation, observability (e.g., Datadog, OpenTelemetry) and self-service platform design
• A strategic mindset with experience designing, building, and operating scalable, distributed systems in a regulated environment
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences internal and external