Job description
Head of data engineering
Grade SCS1
Role responsibilities
A head of data engineering leads multi-functional delivery teams to deliver robust data services for their department, other government departments and private sector partners.
At this role level, you will:
- inspire best practice for data products and services within your teams
- build data engineering capability by providing technical leadership and career development for the community
- work with other senior team members to identify, plan, develop and deliver data services
Vision and strategic leadership
- set the vision and strategy for the profession across the department
- collaborate with the wider department to ensure that the vision for the profession aligns with the wider needs of the department
- create a plan and roadmap to build and strengthen professional capability and excellence
- work across government and the sector to ensure a cohesive approach to the specialism, creating opportunities for collaboration through existing networks – or setting up new networks where they don’t exist
- hold authority to ensure that specialists can contribute towards building the profession and participate in communities, backed by DDaT committee
- raise the profile of the profession across the department
- develop an attraction and retention strategy to grow professional capability in the department
Skills you need
Expert practitioner
- act as the expert practitioner in their field with a high level of knowledge of current and new methodologies, strategies, technologies, techniques, and a track record of delivery
- retain an element of practice of their profession to keep their skills sharp and to work towards strategic departmental objectives. For example, unblocking delivery, product strategies, content strategies, architectural designs and patterns, etc.
Community
- develop professional communities to support our people to grow, establish standards and consistency, and support rapid delivery through sharing and learning from one another
- work cross-government and externally to build connections into professional communities
- work with other heads of profession in related professions within their job family
Quality and standards
- create accessible knowledge, standards and practices to set good conditions for people in their professions to work effectively, and ensuring they are well enforced through service assessments
- be the guardian of quality and standards of the practitioners within the profession and the principles and policies of the profession
- lead by example in the application of standards
- grow the assessor pool in the profession to assure service delivery and build profession sustainability
People
- build and grow a forward-thinking and diverse team within the profession
- build professional capability across the department
- define the competency, professional practice, skills profile and expertise expectations at different grades across the profession
- set the approach for recruitment, onboarding, retention, graduate pipelines, diversification, and developing the framework for the professional development of people in their specialism
- develop the framework for professional development of people in their specialism and tracking capability
Organisational delivery
- establish close relationships with all delivery teams to understand their needs and challenges and to be able to identify areas of data engineering alignment
- advise and consult for the senior management team on questions relating to the profession
- provide consulting support for programmes with performance issues or where a particular specialism is lacking or causing delivery issues
- feed up-to-date capability information into the workforce plan
- make evidence-based decisions on the best tools, platforms, services and content which support the professions across the department