At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead data engineering for paid media, ensuring data quality and reliability.
- Company: Join Better Collective, a global sports media group with a collaborative culture.
- Benefits: Flexible hours, private health insurance, office perks, and a dynamic work environment.
- Other info: Opportunity for growth in a flat organisational structure with a strong team.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in sports media while working with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: Experience in data engineering, SQL, Python, and a passion for ownership.
The predicted salary is between 63000 - 77000 £ per year.
About Better Collective
Better Collective is a global sports media group, reaching more than 400 million monthly visits across a portfolio of leading sports media brands. We build products and experiences that make sports more engaging and accessible for fans around the world. Behind that sits a large and diverse technology and data landscape, spanning markets, brands and business models. We work in a collaborative environment where people are encouraged to challenge how things are done, take ownership and help shape what comes next.
The domain
Paid media is where the data has to pay off. We spend real money across dozens of ad networks every day. Which campaigns scale, which creatives get cut, which markets get more budget: those calls come out of the models this team builds. Ad platform spend and delivery, affiliate and operator revenue, CRM data, all stitched into one user-level view of what a click was actually worth. That model exists and it works. It is also the most demanding domain on our data platform - the most sources, the fastest schema churn, and the shortest patience for a table that landed late. We are looking for the engineer who owns it.
Where this role sits
A central platform team sets the how. You set the what. Better Collective runs a hub and spoke data organisation. A central data platform team owns the platform itself - MotherDuck, dbt, Dagster, DLT, the golden paths, the standards, the infrastructure. Paid Media Insights is a domain team, a spoke, that builds on it. The split is deliberate and we hold to it. The platform team decides how data is produced here. You decide what paid media produces, and you own everything we run.
What you will own
- Every data job in paid media. All of it.
- Freshness, cost, reliability, alerting, and the incident at 07:30 before the spend review. If a paid media model is wrong or late, it is yours, not the platform team's.
- The end-to-end user-level model. Ad platform spend and delivery, affiliate and operator revenue, and CRM, joined into one view the business trusts enough to move budget on.
- Ingestion of paid media sources, built on the platform's framework.
- The domain's models, from staging through to the marts analysts and business teams actually query.
- Reverse ETL back into the ad platforms, so online and offline conversion data lands where it changes bidding.
- The handover. Part of your first year is taking over the paid media jobs the central team still runs on our behalf, and moving that ownership to where the context actually lives.
What you will lead
A group of engineers, and the standard they build to. You will guide and mentor a group of data engineers in Paid Media Insights, as their technical lead. That means setting the standard for how this domain builds, reviewing their work, unblocking them, and deliberately growing them: giving away the interesting problems rather than keeping them. You will also shape the domain's roadmap together with the Senior Head of Paid Media Insights, the analysts and the business teams, and you will represent paid media in platform conversations, including how we support machine learning and data science on top of this data. This is a hands-on technical leadership role, not a step away from building. You will be in the code.
Job requirements
What we are looking for
- More than a stack match, we are looking for a particular way of working.
- You take ownership, and it shows up in the boring parts.
- You break complex systems into simple parts.
- You raise the people around you.
- You work well with a platform team.
- You are already past prompting.
- You are close to the business.
- You are technically deep where it counts.
Not sure you meet every single requirement? That is okay. Your unique experience might be exactly what we are looking for.
Our stack
What you will build on: MotherDuck / DuckDB, dbt, Dagster, DLT, Python, SQL, AWS, reverse ETL and semantic layer tooling. We do not expect you to have worked with all of these. If you have built production pipelines on Snowflake, BigQuery or Redshift and you are curious about where we are going, that transfers.
What we offer
An international company in growth, and a flat structure. Join a strong team where you can create value and make a real business impact, in a dynamic and creative environment with a flat organisational structure. Freedom with responsibility, ample room to grow, and the chance to take on a broad set of responsibilities. Flexible working hours supporting a healthy work-life balance, private health insurance, and office perks including lunch, snacks, gym access and social events, alongside skilled, passionate and fun colleagues.
Your path to Better Collective
How to apply: We process applications on an ongoing basis and encourage you to apply as soon as possible. For questions about the position, reach out to Michael Hill, Senior Head of Paid Media Insights, at mhill@bettercollective.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
Hybrid London, United Kingdom
Lead Data Engineer in London employer: Better Collective
Better Collective is an exceptional employer that offers a dynamic work environment at the forefront of the gaming and esports industry. With a strong emphasis on innovation and collaboration, employees are encouraged to develop their skills and explore new commercial opportunities while working with some of the biggest brands in sports and gaming. The hybrid work model in London provides flexibility, allowing for a balanced professional and personal life, making it an attractive place for passionate individuals looking to make a meaningful impact.
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We think this is how you could land Lead Data Engineer in London
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We think you need these skills to ace Lead Data Engineer in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show Off Your Projects:In the world of data science, your projects can speak volumes about your skills. Make sure to showcase a few key projects in your CV or portfolio, especially those that highlight your ability to work with data sets, build models, or use relevant tools like Python, R, or SQL. Don’t forget to include links to any GitHub repositories if applicable!
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✨Brush Up on Your Statistics
For a data science role, we need to seriously sharpen our statistics skills. Get ready to tackle technical questions on probability distributions, hypothesis testing, and regression analysis. These are often the bread and butter of data science interviews, so don't just skim over them!
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✨Get Comfortable with Python and R
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✨Prepare for Case Studies
Expect to encounter real-world case studies during the interview. We might be asked how we’d approach a data problem or analyse a dataset to extract insights. It's essential to think out loud and demonstrate our problem-solving process so that the interviewer can see our logical thinking in action.
