Lead Distributed Data Platform Engineer

ABOUT THE COMPANYWe are a global legal technology company that has been building software for the legal industry for over two decades. Our AI-powered cloud platform is used by leading law firms, Fortune 500 corporations, and government agencies worldwide to organise complex data, surface critical insights, and act on them — across litigation, investigations, regulatory inquiries, and data breach response.We're valued at $3.6 billion and invest over $170 million annually in R&D. We're making substantial investments in data lake technology and distributed systems to support future growth and advanced analytics. Our scale means the data problems here are genuinely hard — and the platform you lead will underpin how the entire organisation accesses and acts on its data.ABOUT THE ROLEWe're building a specialised team focused on enabling advanced analytics and reporting capabilities across our internal data ecosystem. As Lead Distributed Data Platform Engineer, you'll combine deep technical expertise with hands-on team leadership — guiding a team in designing and maintaining data platforms that integrate modern lakehouse technologies, distributed compute frameworks, and cloud-native services at enterprise scale.You'll lead architectural decisions, mentor engineers, and ensure delivery of secure, reliable, and scalable solutions. The role emphasises technical leadership, governance best practices, and a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. You'll also participate in on-call rotations as part of shared team responsibility for platform reliability.WHAT YOU'LL WORK ONTeam leadership and mentorshipLead and mentor a team of data platform engineers, promoting collaboration, knowledge sharing, and professional growth. Set and maintain high engineering standards across the team.Distributed systems architectureDrive architectural decisions for distributed systems and lakehouse platforms using Spark, Delta Lake, and Iceberg. Facilitate architecture reviews and contribute to design decisions for fault-tolerant, future-ready systems.Data pipeline and platform deliveryOversee design and implementation of scalable data pipelines and analytics workflows, ensuring they are reliable, performant, and maintainable at scale.Engineering best practicesEnsure adherence to clean code, modular design, CI/CD, automated testing, and code review standards across all platform engineering work.Performance and cost optimisationManage performance tuning, scalability strategies, and cost optimisation across cloud-native environments and large-scale distributed workloads.Governance and observabilityChampion governance, observability, and compliance frameworks across all data platforms — ensuring data remains accessible, secure, and auditable.Stakeholder communicationCommunicate effectively with leadership and cross-functional teams to provide updates, resolve blockers, and ensure delivery aligns with business objectives and analytics needs.WHAT WE LOOK FORProven technical team leadershipDemonstrated experience leading data engineering or platform development teams — mentoring engineers, owning architectural decisions, and driving delivery outcomes.Python and SQLStrong programming skills in both Python and SQL applied to production data platform work at scale.Apache SparkHands-on experience with Spark for distributed data processing, including performance tuning and optimisation in production environments.Lakehouse architectureExpertise in Delta Lake and/or Apache Iceberg. You understand the trade-offs and have applied these technologies in production at scale.Analytics toolingFamiliarity with dbt, Databricks, and Snowflake for analytics workflows and large-scale data processing.Software engineering fundamentalsSolid understanding of software engineering principles — CI/CD, automated testing, clean code, and modular design applied to data platform systems.Infrastructure and containerisationFamiliarity with Kubernetes, Docker, and infrastructure-as-code tools in cloud-native environments.Communication and stakeholder managementStrong communication skills with the confidence to operate across engineering teams, cross-functional partners, and senior leadership.BonusExposure to event-driven architectures and advanced analytics platforms. Experience enabling self-service analytics for internal stakeholders. Experience in Java, Scala, or Rust. Exposure to service mesh and advanced orchestration patterns.THE TEAMYou'll join a global engineering organisation working on a platform used by some of the world's largest legal teams. The culture is diverse, inclusive, and driven by high standards. Engineers here work on genuinely complex technical problems at scale — and are supported with the coaching, development, and tooling to keep growing.COMPENSATION & BENEFITSSalary270,000 – 406,000 PLN per year, plus an annual performance bonus and long-term incentives.Health coverageComprehensive health, dental, and vision plans.Parental leaveParental leave available for both primary and secondary caregivers.Flexible workingFlexible work arrangements with a remote-first model.Company breaksTwo week-long company-wide breaks per year, plus additional time off.Training investmentDedicated training investment programme to support ongoing professional development.