Lead Data Specialist

Location: Sydney (Hybrid - Office & Client Site)
Contract: 6 Months (Strong Extension Potential)
Eligibility: Must hold Australian Permanent Residency or Citizenship

About the Role

We're hiring a Lead / Senior Data Specialist for our client, a leading consultancy, to drive the transformation from legacy data silos to a Unified Lakehouse on Databricks. You'll lead discovery workshops, shape target architecture, and work with a high-performing engineering team to turn raw data into trusted insights.

This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll guide technical teams, resolve critical issues, and present progress and ROI to executives and clients.

• Lead Databricks migration and analytics engagements from scoping to production handover
• Design and optimise batch and streaming pipelines into Delta Lake, governed by Unity Catalog
• Model data using medallion architecture and enforce standards for quality, lineage, and security
• Embed automated testing, monitoring, and CI/CD for fast, reliable releases
• Deliver curated Power BI datasets, dashboards, and reusable APIs for near real-time insights
• Mentor engineers and manage stakeholder expectations at all levels

• Proven experience architecting and delivering Databricks Lakehouse solutions at scale
• Databricks certifications highly regarded
• Advanced SQL plus Python or Scala, with deep knowledge of Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and DevOps automation
• Experience integrating enterprise systems via REST, messaging, or ETL tools
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills-from technical deep dives to executive briefings
• Exposure to IBM i/DB2, ConnectWise, HubSpot, Boomi, Snowflake, or Tableau
• Hands-on experience operationalising machine learning workloads in Databricks
• Familiarity with cost optimisation and FinOps in cloud analytics environments