Technical Manager, Data Engineering

Waystar • Atlanta, GA

3d

About The Position

We are seeking a Technical Manager, Data Engineering, to lead and scale Waystar’s data engineering function while actively contributing to the delivery of our modern data platform. This role combines people leadership, technical ownership, and hands-on engineering to drive execution across our BigQuery-based data platform.
You will be responsible for managing a team of data engineers, setting technical directions, and ensuring the successful delivery of scalable ingestion and transformation pipelines across a Medallion architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold) on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This leader will partner closely with platform leadership, governance, and business domains to establish a reliable, governed, and high-performing data ecosystem.

Requirements

• 8+ years of data engineering experience with enterprise-scale platforms
• 2+ years of experience leading or managing data engineering teams
• Strong hands-on expertise with GCP and BigQuery
• Advanced experience with dbt (required)
• Experience with Fivetran and API-based ingestion frameworks
• Strong Python skills including API integrations and automation
• Proven experience building scalable ELT pipelines and data models
• Experience with data quality, validation frameworks, and observability
• Proficiency with GitHub, CI/CD workflows, and code review practices
• Strong understanding of data governance, lineage, and access controls

Nice To Haves

• Experience working in regulated environments (e.g., healthcare) preferred
• Experience leading teams through cloud data platform migrations (e.g., Snowflake → BigQuery)
• Experience with Terraform (IaC) and platform automation
• Familiarity with Harness CI/CD and GitHub Actions
• Experience with Snowflake and Azure Data Factory (ADF)
• Knowledge of data mesh / domain-driven data ownership models
• Experience driving engineering standards across distributed teams

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and scale a team of data engineers supporting multiple business domains
• Drive delivery accountability, sprint execution, and engineering best practices
• Establish development standards, code reviews, and performance expectations
• Manage capacity, workload balance, and resource planning across initiatives
• Partner with leadership to align engineering priorities with strategic goals
• Define and enforce data engineering standards, patterns, and best practices
• Provide hands-on technical leadership across BigQuery, dbt, and ingestion frameworks
• Guide architecture decisions for scalable, secure, and cost-efficient data pipelines
• Lead design of domain-aligned, reusable data models and pipelines
• Ensure alignment with governance, data classification, and access control frameworks
• Design, build, and maintain ELT pipelines into BigQuery using Fivetran and custom APIs
• Oversee and contribute to development of bronze, silver, and gold layers
• Support and review dbt models, transformations, and orchestration workflows
• Implement orchestration using Cloud Composer (Managed Airflow)
• Act as an escalation point for complex technical issues and delivery risks
• Enforce data quality, validation, and monitoring standards across pipelines
• Implement logging, alerting, and observability frameworks
• Ensure performance optimization for BigQuery (partitioning, clustering, cost management)
• Enforce security best practices including IAM roles, data access, and auditability
• Drive adherence to data lineage, documentation, and governance requirements
• Champion CI/CD practices using GitHub and modern deployment pipelines
• Drive Infrastructure-as-Code standards (Terraform) for platform consistency
• Improve developer experience, onboarding, and engineering productivity
• Collaborate with Data Governance and Data Champions to enable domain ownership

Benefits

• Competitive total rewards (base salary + bonus, if applicable)
• Customizable benefits package (3 medical plans with Health Saving Account company match)
• Generous paid time off for non-exempt team members, starting with 3 weeks + 13 paid holidays, including 2 personal floating holidays
• Flexible time off for exempt team members + 13 paid holidays
• Paid parental leave (including maternity + paternity leave)
• Education assistance opportunities and free LinkedIn Learning access
• Free mental health and family planning programs, including adoption assistance and fertility support
• 401(K) program with company match
• Pet insurance
• Employee resource groups

What This Job Offers

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