Senior Engineering Manager, Data Platform

Are you an experienced engineering leader with a strong data platform background and a passion for building from scratch? At Budget Thuis, we’re launching our data modernization journey to enable real-time insights and AI-driven capabilities, while strengthening data governance to safely scale our data use. We’re looking for someone who not only designs the architecture, but also builds the team, drives transformation, and brings data to life.

What you’ll do

As Senior Engineering Manager, Data Platform, you will own the foundation that makes our product and analytics ambitions possible. You will design and build our data platform, hire and grow the data engineering team, and work closely with the Head of Engineering, the Engineering Managers, and the Head of BI to make sure data is available, reliable, and ready to use.

This is a hands-on leadership role. In the early phase you will be building alongside your first hires, making architecture decisions, setting up infrastructure, and establishing the engineering standards the team will grow on. Over time, as the team and platform mature, the role evolves into full team leadership and cross-functional stakeholder management.

If you thrive in a greenfield environment, enjoy making pragmatic decisions under real constraints, and want to build something that matters, this is your role.

Your responsibilities

• Design and build a modern cloud data platform (data lake / lakehouse architecture) that enables real-time insights and AI use cases;

• Define the technical architecture and own the key technology choices;

• Hire, onboard, and manage a team of data engineers across the core platform and embedded in product teams;

• Establish data engineering standards, ways of working, and quality practices across Budget Thuis;

• Collaborate with Engineering Managers, the Head of BI, and product teams to align on priorities and deliver against the roadmap;

• Evolve our data governance practices — lineage, quality, cataloging, and security — to scale with our data ambitions;

• Ensure data privacy and compliance are embedded in the platform from the ground up — not bolted on afterwards;

• Make smart trade-offs on cloud spend and tooling — we are a cost leader and proud of it.

What you bring

• Proven experience designing and building modern data platforms in a cloud environment (data lake, lakehouse, or similar);

• End-to-end data engineering experience: from source systems to analytics and AI/ML applications, including batch and real-time processing;

• Experience hiring and managing a data engineering team — this is not a pure individual contributor role;

• Hands-on engineering background — comfortable contributing to the build in the early phase, not just reviewing others' work;

• Strong communication skills — able to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and align teams around a shared direction;

• Experience with at least one major orchestration, processing, and streaming stack (e.g. Airflow/Dagster, Spark/Databricks, Kafka/Event Hubs).

Nice to have

• Azure cloud expertise (Data Lake, Databricks, Event Hubs);

• Experience with data governance tooling;

• MLOps or ML platform experience;

• Domain knowledge in utilities, energy, or telco;

• Experience working alongside a BI function.

At Budget Thuis, we find it important that you can be 100% yourself. In our organization, we are open to different perspectives and personalities, fostering curiosity and mutual appreciation. For this position, we prefer someone who enriches our team in every aspect. Someone who, from their own background and personal qualities, is a valuable addition within Budget Thuis. 

We offer you 

• A market-competitive salary based on your knowledge and experience;

• 13th month salary;

• Summer Fridays off in July and August;

• Hybrid work: 50/50 office & remote, plus one month fully remote per year;

• Sustainable travel allowance: Swapfiets or NS Business Card;

• 25 vacation days + option to buy 1.5 extra weeks;

• Volunteer day to give back to society;

• Excellent pension plan (11% employer contribution);

• Anniversary bonuses and perks, including trips, dinners, or a sabbatical;

• Monthly ClassPass credits for fitness and wellness;

• Free daily lunch prepared by our chef (€2,50 net);

• Free internet, Budget mobile, and energy discounts.

To be eligible for this position, a Certificate of Good Conduct (VOG) is required. This will be requested after a successful selection round, and costs can be reimbursed after successfully completing the trial period at Budget Thuis. More information about the VOG can be found at www.rijksoverheid.nl. 

Ready to join?

Don’t miss this chance to join our tight-knit, high-impact team of three at Budget Thuis, where your work directly shapes our core infrastructure. Apply today and become part of a team that values your ideas, rewards innovation, and empowers you to grow, we’re excited to see what you’ll bring! Do you have any questions after reading this vacancy? You can email: wouter.vanittersum@budgetthuis.nl

Recruitment inquiries based on this advertisement are not appreciated.