Lead Data Engineer

Create Music Group

17d • CA$120,000 - CA$150,000

About The Position

The Lead Data Engineer will play a central role in the buildout of CMG's next-generation data platform. This is a high-ownership role on a small, senior team, working directly with the SVP of Data & AI to design and implement a scalable lakehouse architecture on Google Cloud Storage (GCS) and Databricks, spanning bronze, silver, and gold layers. The role emphasizes domain-driven design, data contracts, and proactive communication with both internal stakeholders and external vendors.

Requirements

• 4+ years of data engineering experience, with at least 1–2 years focused on data platform or lakehouse architecture
• Hands-on experience with Databricks — including Delta Lake, PySpark, and ideally Unity Catalog
• Experience with GCS or equivalent cloud object storage as a lakehouse foundation layer
• Hands-on experience with domain-driven design applied to data modeling
• Strong command of SQL and at least one transformation framework (dbt preferred)
• Experience with medallion or lakehouse architectures (bronze/silver/gold or equivalent)
• Familiarity with GCP-native tooling — Pub/Sub, Dataflow, or Dataplex a plus
• Excellent written communication — able to write design docs non-engineers can understand and status updates executives can act on
• Demonstrated ability to work independently in ambiguous environments
• Track record of flagging risks early with proposed solutions

Nice To Haves

• Experience in music/media/entertainment data
• Familiarity with data contracts or schema validation (Unity Catalog, Great Expectations, dbt tests)
• Experience with external dev vendors

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and implementation of CMG's Medallion 2.0 lakehouse architecture — bronze ingestion, silver transformation, and gold domain layers — built on GCS and Databricks (Delta Lake), with clear data contracts at each boundary
• Design and manage data pipelines using Astro (Airflow), PySpark, and Delta Live Tables, ensuring reliability and scalability across ingestion and transformation layers
• Govern the lakehouse using Databricks Unity Catalog — managing access controls, data lineage, and schema enforcement across domains
• Apply domain-driven design principles to partition and model data domains (e.g., royalty, asset, artist, distribution)
• Collaborate with the analytics team to ensure the gold layer reflects real business needs — reducing workarounds
• Coordinate with external vendors (e.g., DataArt) and internal stakeholders across DevOps, product, and analytics
• Proactively identify architectural risks, data quality issues, and dependency blockers with proposed resolutions
• Maintain clear, impact-first documentation and status updates for both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Other duties as assigned

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed