Head of Data Platforms / Data Engineering Lead - Snowflake

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Job Profile Summary

We are seeking a highly experienced data engineering leader to serve as Head of Data Platforms, with deep hands‑on expertise in Snowflake, Azure, and modern data engineering practices. This role is ideal for a technically strong data engineer who has evolved into a strategic leadership position, and who can architect, build, and scale enterprise‑grade cloud data platforms.

The successful candidate will define and execute our data platform strategy, lead a technically proficient team of data engineers and analysts, and ensure our platform delivers robust, secure, and scalable data solutions that support critical business objectives across our commercial and specialty insurance operations.

This role demands expert‑level proficiency in Snowflake, including performance optimisation, data modelling, and pipeline orchestration, alongside a strong understanding of the insurance sector. You will collaborate closely with business stakeholders, IT teams, and external partners to deliver innovative, compliant, and high‑performing data solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Leadership and Management
  • Lead and mentor a team of senior data engineers and analysts, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
  • Champion engineering best practices, including CI/CD and automated testing within the data platform domain.
• Strategy and Architecture
  • Define and execute a forward‑looking data platform strategy with Snowflake at its core, aligned to business transformation goals.
  • Provide architectural leadership on data modelling, ingestion frameworks, and platform scalability.
  • Evaluate and implement modern data engineering tools and frameworks (e.g., dbt, FiveTran, ADF) to enhance platform capabilities.
  • Own the end‑to‑end engineering of the enterprise data platform, with deep involvement in Snowflake performance tuning, cost optimisation, and workload management.
  • Design and maintain robust data pipelines for batch and streaming use cases, integrating with legacy systems and cloud‑native applications.
  • Ensure platform reliability through automated monitoring, alerting, and disaster recovery mechanisms.
• Governance and Compliance
  • Implement data governance frameworks that ensure data quality, lineage, and metadata management across Snowflake and Azure environments.
  • Ensure compliance with GDPR and other regulatory standards through secure data handling and retention policies.
• Innovation and Continuous Improvement
  • Stay abreast of emerging data engineering trends and technologies, particularly within the Snowflake ecosystem.
  • Drive automation and self‑service capabilities across the platform to empower business users and reduce operational overhead.
• Stakeholder Engagement
  • Partner with underwriting, claims, finance, and operations teams to translate business needs into scalable data engineering solutions.
  • Collaborate with IT, cybersecurity, and software engineering teams to ensure seamless integration and platform security.

Skills and Competencies

• Extensive hands‑on experience with Snowflake, including performance optimisation, data modelling, and workload management.
• Proven track record of delivering enterprise‑scale data platforms in Azure.
• Strong leadership experience in managing senior data engineers and technical teams.
• Deep understanding of data engineering principles, including ELT/ETL, orchestration, and cloud‑native architecture.
• Experience in the London Market and familiarity with Lloyd’s operations and regulatory data requirements.
• Experience with dbt, FiveTran, ADF, and other modern data engineering tools.
• Knowledge of MS Fabric, and event‑driven architectures.
• Familiarity with data architecture frameworks such as DAMA.

Education

• Familiarity with data architecture frameworks such as DAMA.

Why Chaucer

An established market leading Insurer, where over the past 5 years, the Chaucer Group has seen significant and successful growth. In 2019, we wrote $1.4bn of Gross Written Premium, closed 2023 with $2.7bn, and are on track to write well over $3bn in 2024.

This is an exciting time for Chaucer; we have the people, the platforms, the expertise and the relationships to continue our recent success. We will remain focussed on the areas where we can provide the most expertise and value to our brokers and clients.

We have no appetite to change this, whilst the market is steadily moving back to 4/1 working days, we are continuing to operate on a much more flexible hybrid basis with Heads of teams working closely with employees to strike a balance of what works best in their area. Our approach has been immensely popular and a successful way of working for the business and all employees at Chaucer.

Chaucer is committed to diversity

We actively value difference and respect people regardless of the protected characteristics which are outlined in the Equality Act 2010 (UK legislation) as a result of the Equal Treatment Directive 2006 (EU legislation).

A diverse workforce and an inclusive workplace are core to our success as a business and integral to our winning strategy and culture. We recruit from the widest available pool of talent, and our hiring, assessment and selection process is fair, free from bias and one which ensures we select the right person for the job, based on merit. We are committed to promoting a culture that actively values difference, and recognises that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect throughout their employment.

We are open to considering flexible working arrangements for all roles and encourage you to outline your needs during the interview process.

Benefits

Extensive, non‑contributory benefits, including pension, medical insurance, life insurance, flexi benefits, options for buying and selling holidays, not to mention a diverse and inclusive culture, we pride ourselves on managing employees welfare. We have a wide range of other benefits on offer.

Seniority level

Mid‑Senior level

Employment type

Full‑time

Job function

Science, Engineering, and Information Technology

Industries

Insurance

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