Lead Data Engineer

About us

• Valiotti Data is a team of data engineers and analysts working with fast-growing companies in SaaS, FinTech, and e-commerce: 7 years, 50+ delivered projects, clients with up to $2B in annual revenue. We build systems and hand the knowledge to the client's team instead of keeping it to ourselves.

What you'll do

• Design warehouses and pipelines end to end, starting from the client's actual problem.
• Make the architectural call and defend it, to the client and to the team, with the alternatives you rejected and why.
• Set the engineering standard: code review, tech talks, conventions for SQL and Python, and how we configure Claude Code.
• Build and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines with CI/CD for data workflows.
• Run the technical side of client communication with the project manager: calls, written updates, scope.
• Document models, pipelines and decisions so the client's team can operate everything after we leave.
• Mentor mid-level engineers and unblock them on hard problems.

Must-haves

• 5+ years in data engineering, including at least one warehouse you owned from design to production.
• Production-grade SQL and Python, the kind other people maintain.
• Hands-on BigQuery, and Airflow 2.x or a comparable orchestrator.
• Judgment on ClickHouse, Kafka, S3 and dbt: when to reach for them and when not to.
• Production experience with an agentic coding tool.
• English at B2 or above. You'll be on client calls from the first weeks.
• You make architectural decisions without waiting for sign-off.

Nice-to-haves

• Mentoring or code-review leadership for junior and mid engineers.
• Public work: repos, case studies, talks.
• A Claude Code or other LLM setup you've actually tuned, for example CLAUDE.md, slash commands, sub-agents.

How the work is structured

• 2 to 3 client projects in parallel. Each project team is small, usually one engineer and one analyst, so "lead" here means technical authority across projects and mentorship inside the company, not managing a squad on a single account.
• You work with clients directly, and a project manager handles commercial questions and scheduling.
• Fully remote, flexible hours. We work in the European time zone, with occasional calls with US clients.

What we offer

• 23 paid working days off per year.
• Corporate Claude subscription.
• English classes and reimbursed certifications.
• Internal knowledge base: case studies, guides, architectural templates you don't have to build from zero.
• Flat structure. Decisions take days.

How to apply

• Optional, and it makes the first conversation much better: a link to code you're proud of, or a few lines about a Claude Code or other LLM pattern you use, a slash command, a prompt structure, a CLAUDE.md setup. It doesn't need to be original. Private repos are fine, we'll sign an NDA.
• No test assignment. We read what you send, then one technical call and a final meeting with the founder.