Lead Data Engineer

Credit Union of Southern California•Anaheim, CA

7h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead Data Engineer will play a critical role in designing, building, and maintaining the data architecture that powers enterprise business intelligence and analytics at the credit union. This individual will serve as a hands-on senior data engineer mentoring more junior team members, partnering closely with BI developers, analysts, and business stakeholders to deliver trusted, scalable, and well-governed data solutions. This role is ideal for a technically strong data professional who enjoys balancing architecture, engineering, and data enablement in a regulated financial environment, and who is also excited by the prospect of taking the Data & Analytics practice to the next level of maturity. Business Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Based upon business needs, our positions may require working flexible hours, including weekends. This position is based in Anaheim Hills, CA with the opportunity to work on a hybrid-remote schedule which consists of 2 days in-office and 3 days working remote from home. Why Work at CU SoCal? CU SoCal is one of the fastest growing credit unions and is more than just a place to work. It’s a place where people come before profit, a place where you can build a career that’s more than a job, and where the work you do has meaning and purpose. We offer competitive pay, great health benefits and a culture like no other! CU SoCal is a Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award Recipient In 2025, Credit Union of Southern California (CU SoCal) was once again honored with the Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award, marking our second consecutive win and ranking us among the top workplaces worldwide for outstanding employee engagement! The CU SoCal culture fosters Building Better Lives for our Members, personal development, open communication, and genuine care for each other. We prioritize C.A.R.E. 4: professional competence, positive attitude, relationship building, and eager service to others. If you're passionate about making a difference and want to be part of a dynamic team, explore CU SoCal career opportunities today!

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
10+ years of experience in data and analytics engineering and support operations
Deep experience working with data warehouses or lakehouse platforms (cloud or on-prem)
Experience with Snowflake/AWS cloud data platform
Advanced proficiency with SQL and at least one data transformation framework or ETL/ELT tool
Solid understanding of data governance, data quality, and security concepts

Nice To Haves

Preferred Qualifications
Experience in financial services, banking, or credit unions
Strong experience designing analytical data models (star schema, snowflake, fact/dimension modeling)
Experience designing and evolving enterprise data architecture that supports reporting, analytics, and self-service BI
Ability to define and maintain logical and physical data models (dimensional, relational, and analytical)
Understanding of data standards, naming conventions, and modeling best practices
Working knowledge of aligning architecture with security, privacy, regulatory, and governance requirements
Ability to develop in Tableau Desktop independently as needed
Familiarity with CI/CD, version control
Experience with metadata management or data catalog tools
Comfortable working within the Agile framework

Responsibilities

Design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines (batch and/or near-real-time)
Ingest, transform, and integrate data from core banking systems, third-party vendors, and internal applications
Optimize data performance, reliability, and cost across storage and compute layers in Snowflake
Implement data quality checks, monitoring, and error handling
Partner with BI developers and analysts to ensure data structures support reporting and analytics needs
Create curated data marts, semantic layers, or analytics-ready datasets, balancing immediate needs with the strategic vision for the data model/architecture
Support and troubleshoot downstream BI solutions and dashboards
Develop or enhance dashboards in Tableau Desktop when needed
Implement data access controls, masking, and lineage
Support regulatory, audit, and risk management requirements common to financial institutions
Contribute to metadata management and documentation
Advise on best practices as they relate to BI data governance, security, and compliance
Serve as a technical lead and mentor for BI analysts and data engineering team members
Translate business requirements into technical solutions
Collaborate with IT, Information Security, and business units
Complete understanding and active application the C.A.R.E. 4 Guide expectations and the Brand Communications Standards Accountability Philosophy
Must be able and available to work a “hybrid” schedule, per business operations requirement, as needed
Additional duties and responsibilities, as assigned