Lead Data Engineer

DescriptionKforce has a client that is seeking a Lead Data Engineer in Madison, WI.Key Responsibilities:Technical Leadership:* Lead the design, development, and implementation of enterprise-scale data platforms and pipelines* Provide technical leadership and mentorship to data engineers and cross-functional teams* Establish data engineering standards, best practices, and architectural patterns* Conduct code reviews and ensure solutions meet performance, scalability, and security standards* Collaborate with architects, product owners, and business stakeholders to translate requirements into technical solutionsData Engineering & Platform Development:* Design and build robust batch and real-time data pipelines using GCP technologies* Develop scalable data ingestion frameworks capable of processing large volumes of structured and unstructured data* Build and maintain cloud-native solutions that support analytics, AI/ML, and operational reporting* Optimize data processing performance, reliability, and cost efficiency across cloud environments* Partner with Data Science and Analytics teams to enable advanced modeling and machine learning initiativesCloud & Data Architecture:* Lead the implementation of modern cloud data architectures utilizing: BigQuery; Dataflow; Dataproc; Cloud Composer; Pub/Sub; Cloud Storage* Drive continuous improvement across development, testing, deployment, and support processesRequirements* Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field* 8-10+ years of Data Engineering experience* 3+ years in a Lead, Principal, or Senior Data Engineering capacity* Expert-level proficiency with Python for data engineering and data processing* Deep expertise in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Python* Proven success leading engineering teams while remaining hands-on with architecture, development, and deliveryJob TypeContractCompensation70 - $80