Walker Sands is one of the fastest-growing integrated B2B marketing agencies in the world. We are looking for a Lead Data Engineer to help fuel that continued growth. The starting salary for this role is expected to be between $155,000 and $175,000 per year.

Walker Sands is seeking a Lead Data Engineer to join our DATA practice (Data, Analytics, Technology and AI) and help lead the data infrastructure behind our client reporting, measurement, internal operations, and AI-driven work.

This is a hands-on role, but not a heads-down one. Reporting to the SVP, DATA, you'll lead key technical parts of our data stack and be a strategic partner on where it goes next: what to build, what to buy, what to fix, and what actually matters to the business. You don't need a lot of direction and are comfortable working through ambiguity.

The role grows as you do. Near term, you'll work alongside our team and external partners to extend and strengthen the platform. Over time, you'll take on more of the technical ownership and help lead what comes next. And as the practice scales, you'll build and lead a small data support team handling tier 1 and tier 2 triage.

What You Will Do (Responsibilities):

Data Engineering

Build and maintain pipelines and dbt models in Snowflake that are tested, documented, and trusted
Integrate data from paid media, web analytics, SEO, CRM, and business systems using tools like Fivetran or Airbyte and direct APIs
Find and fix breaks at the root, before an account team or client finds them
Maintain data governance: access controls, privacy, and consent requirements
Structure and document data so AI agents can use it reliable: clear semantic layers, consistent definitions, and metadata that tells an agent what a table or metric actually means
Build governed access patterns for agentic tools (scoped, read-only, permission aware) so agents only query the data they're allowed to, and their answers can be traced back to the source

Strategy + Partnership

Work with the SVP, DATA on architecture, roadmap, and build-vs-buy-vs-partner decisions
Translate business and client needs into data designs that hold up, and push back when a request won't
Make data usable for analysts, reporting, and AI-driven tools through well-modeled, well-governed layers

Team Leadership

Build and lead a small data support team handling tier 1 and tier 2 triage, including the playbooks and escalation paths behind it
Eventually build out the team as needed for various functions to drive better accuracy, performance and data tools for the business

What You Bring (Requirements):

You've spent 7+ years in data engineering, enough of it in lean environments where you owned real things without much hand-holding. You can go deep on a broken pipeline in the morning and talk through a roadmap tradeoff in the afternoon, and you're good at both. You are a clear communicator, and work to understand needs beyond the technical with empathy and a ‘here’s what’s possible’ mindset.

You find problems, fix them, document them, and explain them without making them more complicated than they need to be.

7+ years in data or analytics engineering, including time as the lead or senior technical owner on a production data platform
Deep, hands-on Snowflake experience
Strong dbt, advanced SQL, and working Python
Experience integrating SaaS and marketing APIs (ad platforms, GA4, Salesforce, HubSpot) through ELT tools and custom pipelines
A track record of shaping technical direction, not just executing tickets
Clear communication with technical and non-technical people alike

Strong Pluses

Agency or B2B marketing data background
Data governance and privacy experience (role-based access, masking, consent data)
Experience making data usable for AI and LLM-driven tools
Experience leading or mentoring others
Comfortable using AI like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and bringing new ways of working within the data and privacy guardrails of the business

What We Offer (Compensation + Benefits):

Starting Salary: $155,000 - $175,000

Base salary is only a part of the total rewards package. Placement on the salary scale will be determined by a variety of factors to ensure internal equity.