Head of Data Engineering

Join to apply for the Head of Data Engineering role at The Scottish Government

The Agriculture and Rural Economy (ARE) Directorate of the Scottish Government is part of the DG Net Zero family of Directorates. ARE’s mission is to work together with stakeholders to enable vibrant and thriving communities and businesses, that protect and enhance Scotland’s nature.

ARE relies on digital services to deliver its commitment to support Scotland’s sustainable economic growth in agriculture, the food industry and in rural areas. It does this through direct payments; a broad range of best practice support and education; and ensuring compliance with regulations.

In this newly created role you will build and lead the divisions data engineering function, setting its strategic direction as ARE transitions from a legacy data platform to a new cloud based Unified Data Platform (UDP).

• Represent the strategic data engineering perspective in challenging meetings with senior stakeholders, third parties, ministers, and other government department leadership teams.
• Manage resources to ensure that data services work effectively at an enterprise level.
• Set up robust governance processes to keep repositories up to date.
• Establish standards, keep them up to date, and ensure adherence to them.
• Keep abreast of best practice in industry and across government.
• Investigate emerging trends in data-related approaches, perform horizon scanning for the organisation, and introduce innovative ways of working.
• Anticipate problems and know how to prevent them, understanding how they fit into the bigger picture.
• Build problem-solving capabilities in others and help others identify and describe problems.

• Set direction for teams for approaches and techniques for data profiling.
• Establish enterprise-scale data integration procedures across the data development life cycle and ensure that teams adhere to them.
• Leverage the value of enterprise metadata repositories for strategic value.
• Define the modelling approach for the enterprise.

• Set local or team-based standards for programming tools and techniques, selecting appropriate development methods.
• Advise on the application of standards and methods and ensure compliance.
• Take technical responsibility for all stages and iterations in a software development project, providing method-specific technical advice and guidance to project stakeholders.
• Set organisational standards and patterns for others to reuse.
• Apply knowledge of technical concepts and stay up to date with relevant technologies, concepts, and frameworks.
• Anticipate, advise, and set strategy for future opportunities.

• Review requirements and specifications and define test conditions.
• Identify issues and risks associated with work.
• Analyse and report test activities and results.
• Oversee the generation of synthetic test data.

Success profiles are specific to each job, and they include the mix of experience, skills and behaviours candidates will be assessed on.

• Lead Criteria 1 – You Own it: You can take technical responsibility for all stages and iterations in a software development project, providing method-specific technical advice and guidance to project stakeholders.
• Lead Criteria 2 – You Lead it: You have led and set direction for teams for a variety of data engineering approaches and techniques, ensuring successful results and an inclusive team dynamic.
• Criteria 3 – You Innovate it: You have investigated emerging data trends (including cloud), performed horizon-scanning for the organisation and introduced innovative ways of working, enabling your organisation to maintain a relevant data outlook.
• Criteria 4 – You Influence it: You have represented the strategic data perspective in challenging meetings such as governance, architecture, executive leadership, and other senior stakeholders, enabling holistic corporate decision-making incorporating data impacts.

This role is aligned to the Data Engineer – Head of Data Engineering job role within the Data Engineer job family.

• Leadership (Level 4)
• Delivering at Pace (Level 4)

Apply online, providing a CV and Supporting Statement (of no more than 750 words) which provides evidence of how you meet each of the 4 Experience criteria listed in the Success Profile above.

We are committed to equality and inclusion, and we aim to recruit a diverse workforce that reflects the population of our nation.