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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Lead Data Engineer - **Company:** IQVIA - **Location:** Amsterdam, Netherlands - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Airflow, Automation of Tests, Code Coverage, Software Quality, Continuous Integration, Information Engineering, Data Infrastructure, Extract Transform Load (ETL), Data Manipulation Languages, Data Transformation, Data Warehousing, Relational Databases, DevOps, Programming Tools, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Python (Programming Language), PostgreSQL, Machine Learning, Microsoft SQL Server, Natural Language Processing, Performance Tuning, Release Management, DataOps, Software Engineering, SQL Databases, Strategies of Testing, User-Centered Design, Cloud Platform System, Sql Optimization, Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, Data Build Tool (dbt), Kubernetes, Data Lineage, Luigi, Data Management, Machine Learning Operations, Software Version Control, Data Pipelines, Databricks - **Published:** July 30, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.careerjet.nl/job/nlc6337e1834cd6e366619dab163c647ad/eaa ## About the Role * Extensive hands-on experience in Python development, with a strong focus on building scalable, maintainable, testable, and production-grade solutions., * Experience in dbt (Data Build Tool) for data transformation, data modelling, testing, documentation, and deployment within modern analytics ecosystems. * Experience working with Databricks, including data engineering workflows, and optimization of large-scale data pipelines. * Advanced SQL skills with hands-on experience in Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or other enterprise RDBMS platforms, including both DDL and DML operations. * Demonstrated experience building and managing cloud-based data platforms, data warehouses, and Lakehouse architectures. * Experience leading development teams or serving as a senior technical contributor, providing architectural guidance and technical mentorship. * Ability to make independent architecture and design decisions while balancing scalability, maintainability, performance, and business requirements. * Strong understanding of data engineering best practices, including data quality, lineage, observability, governance, and performance optimization. * Proven track record of leveraging automation and AI-assisted development tools to improve engineering productivity, code quality, test coverage, and maintainability in a secure and controlled manner. * Experience with DevOps practices, including version control, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code principles. * Excellent ability to communicate complex technical concepts and business value propositions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. * Strong collaboration skills with experience working in agile teams of four or more developers, providing constructive feedback and embracing technical discussions. * Excellent interpersonal, presentation, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills. * High attention to detail and commitment to delivering high-quality solutions. * Exceptional written and verbal communication skills in English. * Based in Europe, preferably within commuting distance of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Nice to have * Knowledge of medical data standards such as FHIR based data exchange and/or OMOP * Exposure to healthcare / life sciences / clinical trials / pharmaceutical data * Master Data Management of ideally medical ontologies * Data lineage * Dutch language skills are a plus for local collaboration and accessing local data sources ## Description We are seeking a Lead Data Engineer to drive technical direction of data pipeline and data warehouse layers bringing product robustness and maturity. You are comfortable leading work across evolving platforms and stakeholders: aligning on target patterns, ensuring continuity for users and downstream consumers, and delivering incremental improvements while keeping reliability and quality high. You can make decisions when multiple potential approaches are identified taking into account existing codebase, reduction of operational overhead, team strengths and business priorities. You will have the ability to mentor and coach data engineering colleagues to support their weekly responsibilities, ongoing professional development, job satisfaction and career potential. You are a hands-on, self-directed individual who can bring experience in data engineering to identify incremental or substantial areas of improvement, leading on implementation with best practices. You are a professional who is passionate about improving healthcare and having a real impact having developed yourself as a data engineer with a software engineering background. You have an appetite to learn and develop yourself, an innate curiosity, and can bring to light clarity around abstract and unclear problems. You feel comfortable working in a self-organizing company., * Lead end-to-end design and delivery of the data platform (pipelines + warehouse layers), primarily using Prefect, Python and SQL, supported by fit-for-purpose design artefacts and lineage. * Drive platform evolution by standardising patterns, reducing operational overhead, and improving maintainability and reliability across the data landscape. * Ensure continuity and quality during change via release planning, validation strategies, risk management, and clear technical stakeholder communication. * Partner with Product and Engineering to refine requirements, shape delivery plans, and prioritise backlog/work intake based on value, dependencies, and technical constraints. * Raise engineering standards through reviews, quality practices, and responsible AI-assisted engineering (e.g., accelerating development and strengthening tests/refactoring under clear controls). * Collaborate with QA to increase test maturity, coverage, and automation for pipelines and data transformations. * Collaborate with Application and AI/ML leads to integrate data components with the wider product ecosystem (e.g., search and ML pipelines). * Lead the data engineering team (line management where applicable), coaching engineers and owning work intake and prioritisation., * Proven experience designing, developing, and maintaining ETL/ELT data pipelines using modern orchestration frameworks such as Airflow, Prefect, Luigi, or Dagster., * You will be a part of innovation in the medical field, contributing to improved outcomes for healthcare patients and providers * You will have the opportunity to be responsible for technical communication and preparation in cross-team projects. This will often mean online collaboration with international colleagues. * You will collaborate with Machine Learning specialists gaining exposure to ML and Natural Language Processing (NLP) * Medical data is an interesting problem space, both in complexity and in societal value. The texts are a domain of its own with extremely high information density. It gives a real kick when users let us know they were able to collect data they were unable to use previously, such as finding people with a rare disease that might take years otherwise to diagnose or rapidly building quality datasets for COVID research * You will be part of a larger, cross-functional and dynamic team consisting of developers, designers, medical consultants and ML engineers. ## Related Videos - [From Messy Queries to Scalable Systems - How Data Engineering actually works](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100203-from-messy-queries-to-scalable-systems-how-data-engineering-actually-works) - [From DevOps to Scaled DevOps: How We’re Rebuilding Continuous Delivery as a Platform](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100018-from-devops-to-scaled-devops-how-we-re-rebuilding-continuous-delivery-as-a-platform) - [Enjoying SQL data pipelines with dbt](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/823-enjoying-sql-data-pipelines-with-dbt) - [AI Model Management Life Circles: ML Ops For Generative AI Models From Research to Deployment](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1152-ai-model-management-life-circles-ml-ops-for-generative-ai-models-from-research-to-deployment) - [DevOps Maturity Check – a way to balance autonomy and alignment](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/58-devops-maturity-check-a-way-to-balance-autonomy-and-alignment) - [Modern Data Architectures need Software Engineering](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1030-modern-data-architectures-need-software-engineering) ## Related Articles - [The Most Popular IT Jobs on the Market](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/376-the-most-popular-it-jobs-on-the-market) - [Data Engineer Salary UK](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/253-data-engineer-salary-uk) - [Best Companies in the Netherlands: Top 25 Companies in 2023 ](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/193-best-companies-in-the-netherlands-top-25-companies-in-2023) - [Software Developer Salary in The Netherlands [2023]](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/217-software-developer-salary-in-the-netherlands-2023) - [Data Analyst Salary in the UK](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/278-data-analyst-salary-in-the-uk) - [The Biggest German Tech Companies](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/424-the-biggest-german-tech-companies)