Lead Data Engineer

Location:
Barcelona (Hybrid)
- Type: Full-timeGet to know us:Started in 2016, Frekuent is now the all-in-one payment and loyalty platform for unattended environments
- 500+ clients, 100M+ transactions a year, 2.5M+ users across Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, and Singapore. We turn one-time buyers into lifetime clients with cashless, contactless, effortless payments: less friction, more reasons to come back.2026 has been our biggest year yet
- we've hyperscaled from 40 to 100+ people, with more hires on the way, and closed a €6M funding round to fuel what's next.
And we're just getting started
- our goal is to become the default payment and loyalty layer behind every unattended transaction, everywhere.
Curious? Check us out at www.frekuent.com.
Why this role exists:Data at Frekuent isn't a side project
- every tap on a Frekuent Spot, every loyalty reward, every fraud check produces it, and we're scaling fast enough that our current platform is starting to show the seams. We're hiring a Lead Data Engineer to own that platform end-to-end: not write a roadmap slide, but rebuild the pipelines, standards, and trust so the whole company
- including the AI tools we're building on top of our data
- can run on real numbers instead of guesses.
You'll work directly with the exec team, and they want a partner who turns ambiguous business problems into a working data platform, not just a bigger backlog.
What you'll actually do:Audit the current platform's weak spots and turn them into a concrete, prioritized roadmap.
Set technical direction for data modeling, ETL/ELT, and infrastructure-as-code, and lead the engineers who build it.
Own performance, reliability, and cost as data volume grows
- not a \"set it up once\" job.
Partner with the exec team: turn their priorities into a real plan, balance asks, and delegate across the team.
Build real CI/CD for analytics, and set the bar for data quality, lineage, governance, and observability.
Build the AI substrate: schema context, curated semantic layers, and safe read paths
- so an assistant doesn't have to guess.
Champion a real data culture
- push our products and processes to generate clean, reliable, trustworthy data.
Own the data team's OKRs (trust, self-service, foundations, AI enablement), mentor engineers, help hire, and bring in tools that genuinely help.
What you bring:8+ years in data engineering, including 3+ in a lead or technical-direction role.
Deep SQL and strong Python, with hands-on experience running a cloud data platform
- Fabric, Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks (Fabric a strong plus).
Real SQL Server experience
- schema design, query tuning, CDC/replication at volume
- plus strong modern-data-stack skills, dbt especially.
Solid grip on dimensional modeling, distributed systems, and CI/CD for pipelines.
Genuinely fluent with AI tooling
- you know exactly where it helps and where it doesn't.
Experience with high-throughput data needs; payments or transactional systems a strong plus.
Strong written communication (decision records, dictionaries, runbooks), and able to turn fuzzy goals into trackable key results.
Track record mentoring engineers and leading cross-functional projects, comfortable in a fast-scaling, shifting-priority environment.
Bonus points if you...
Have worked on Azure, or hold a Microsoft certification
- DP-600 or DP-203.
Have fintech, payments, or regulated-industry experience (PCI DSS a plus), or handled IoT/connected-device telemetry at volume.
Have built real-time/streaming pipelines (fraud detection, transaction monitoring, Event Hubs, Fabric RTI), or gone beyond Power BI reports into semantic models and row-level security.
Have set up a data governance framework from scratch, or built an internal LLM assistant with real guardrails.
How we work:Fast, autonomous, low-bureaucracy.
We measure output, not hours in a chair.
Resilience means iterating until it works
- not giving up early.
What's In It For YouA hybrid model that works
- Enjoy the energy of our office 3 days a week and the flexibility of working remotely the other 2.
Flexible schedule
- because we trust you to own your time and your outcomes.
Meal vouchers
- Enjoy a monthly support of meal vouchers to make your workdays tastier.
Health & wellness
- private health insurance and discounted gym memberships to keep both body and mind in top shape.
Learning & development
- English classes and role-specific training, because your growth is part of our journey.23 days of paid time off
- plus local holidays, because great ideas need space to rest.
A dynamic, fast-growing environment
- where each day is unique and every idea counts.
A collaborative mindset
- surrounded by people who genuinely enjoy building together.
Regular afterwork & teambuilding events
- activities to relax, connect, and strengthen team bonds.
If you're ready to jump into an exciting environment and make a real difference, this is the place for you.
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