Team Lead Platform Development - Data Engineering

NISC•Cedar Rapids, IA

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking an experienced Team Lead Data Engineering teams. This people leader will own the strategy, delivery, and continuous improvement of our data models, pipelines, and Lakehouse architecture to power analytics, reporting, and data products across NISC. The Team Lead will drive alignment between application experts, software developers, database architects, data engineers, and data analysts while ensuring high standards for data quality, governance, security, and reliability. The ideal candidate combines strong technical acumen in Databricks and cloud data platforms with proven leadership in building high-performing teams, prioritizing backlogs, and delivering Member and business value in an agile, fast-paced environment.

Requirements

3–5+ years leading technical teams (data analytics/engineering) with a track record of delivering complex data initiatives.
Strong verbal and written communication skills; ability to influence and align stakeholders.
5+ years in data engineer related roles analyzing requirements and building data pipelines for multiple functional domains. Hands-on experience with Databricks and Delta Lake; understanding of Data Warehouse and Lakehouse paradigms.
Proficiency in SQL and experience with Python.
Experience building and optimizing pipelines and workflows using AWS (Lambda, S3, SQS/SNS, CloudWatch, EMR, EC2) and Spark/Kafka.
Knowledge of message queuing, stream processing, and scalable data stores.
Strong analytical skills working with structured and unstructured datasets; root cause analysis expertise.

Nice To Haves

Certification in Databricks or cloud data platforms.

Responsibilities

Directly lead, coach, and develop the data engineering team by conducting regular 1:1s, performance feedback sessions, skills development, and succession planning.
Champion NISC’s Shared Values to foster engagement, trust, innovation, and cross-functional teamwork.
Recruit and onboard talent; mentor and enable team members to grow into subject matter experts.
Ability to demonstrate composure and think analytically in high-pressure situations.
Own the Data Engineering roadmap; translate business outcomes into clear objectives, backlog items, and delivery plans.
Partner with Product Owners, Executive, and Design teams to understand value drivers and define data requirements, business logic, and use cases.
Establish and track KPIs/SLAs for model accuracy, pipeline reliability, freshness/latency, and data usability.
Architect, build, and optimize scalable data pipelines across Databricks/Delta Lake, AWS services (e.g., S3, Lambda, EMR, EC2, CloudWatch), and streaming frameworks (Spark/Kafka).
Assemble large, complex datasets meeting functional/non-functional requirements; drive automation, resiliency, and cost efficiency.
Provide example queries and reference data; collaborate with developers, Data Analysts and DBAs to meet access/security, compliance/PII, frequency/latency, and schema requirements (e.g., Unity Catalog).
Create data tools and curated assets that accelerate analytics, data science, and product teams.
Partner with Data Services teams across the company to operationalize advanced data needs and analytical workflows.
Maintain constant communication and collaboration across teams and stakeholders; facilitate agile ceremonies.
Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements: automate manual processes, optimize data delivery, and re-architect for scale.
Collaborate on best practices and standards for Data Engineering at NISC.
Perform root cause analysis and problem-solving on internal/external data and processes.
Leverage generative AI tools and technologies to enhance productivity, creativity, and problem-solving within the scope of the role.
Create and maintain a culture of engagement and one that is conducive of NISC’s Statement of Shared Values.
Commitment to NISC’s Statement of Shared Values.
Other duties as assigned.

Benefits

Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance.
Health Savings Account (HSA) with $100 monthly contributions from NISC.
Like to walk? Improve your overall wellness knowledge? Ability to earn up to $800 additional dollars into your HSA each year through our Wellness Rewards program.
Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (FSA) thru Paylocity.
Fully covered life insurance up to x3 annual base salary.
Fully covered short- and long-term disability.
401(k), traditional or Roth, with employee match up to 6% and employer 4% salary base contributions.
PTO accrual levels dependent on years of service, 120 Life Leave Event hours, 9 paid holidays and an annual holiday week.
$2,500 Interest-FREE technology loan program.
$25,000 employee educational assistance program.
Volunteer, Wellness, Family Events and other employee fun supplied by our committees.
Employee Assistance Program; assisting employees and dependents with virtually any life event.
Benevolence Committee to support employees with financial hardships like unexpected medical bills, funerals and other unfortunate hardships.