Lead Data Engineer/Head of Data Permanent On behalf of a fantstic cleint we are resourcing for the following role This is a senior, hands-on technical leadership role reporting directly to the CTO. You'll shape and deliver a modern data and AI platform, lead a small team of data and analytics engineers, and embed machine learning, AI agents, and advanced analytics into real customer workflows. The Role You'll own the end-to-end data and AI capability - from platform architecture through to production ML systems - ensuring data and AI are applied thoughtfully, responsibly, and with clear business impact. What You'll Do Design and evolve a secure, scalable data & AI platform with Snowflake at its core Build production-grade data pipelines, models, and data products for analytics and AI use cases Design, train, and deploy ML models, embeddings, and vector stores to enable AI-driven experiences Lead and mentor a small, high-impact team of data and analytics engineers Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Infrastructure teams Set standards for data quality, governance, security, and performance Act as a trusted technical advisor to the CTO and senior leadership What We're Looking For Essential Expert-level Snowflake experience (modelling, optimisation, advanced features) Strong Python skills across data engineering, ML, and AI development Proven experience delivering production ML systems Hands-on experience with embeddings, vector databases, and LLM-driven systems Deep understanding of modern data engineering practices (ELT, orchestration, versioning) Nice to Have Background in data science or applied ML Experience building AI agents or intelligent automation Familiarity with cloud-native architectures and MLOps