Lead Engineer, Data Platform
About Ovative Group:
Ovative Group is an independent, full-funnel media, measurement, and creative firm. Leveraging our deep industry expertise, we help brands like Best Buy, Domino's, American Eagle, The Home Depot, Post, Disney, Tumi, Michael Kors, Boost Mobile, and UnitedHealth Group transform their media and measurement programs. The result? Profitable growth that speaks for itself.
At Ovative, we don't just track data, we redefine success. How do we do it? Our proprietary MarTech platform, EMRge helps businesses transform marketing into a driver of sustainable growth. Powered by Enterprise Marketing Return (EMR), our differentiated approach to holistic media buying, planning, and measurement, EMRge is the first MarTech platform to measure businesses holistically. We're all about raising the bar every day, and it shows. Our work has been recognized by organizations like Digiday, Google, Inc. 5000, USA Today, and Search Engine Land.
About the Role:
We are seeking a Lead Engineer to join our rapidly growing product and engineering development team.
Our company specializes in enterprise-level media measurement and optimization across various industries.
In this role, you will lead a cross-functional team responsible for creating, optimizing, and maintaining scalable software and data solutions to enhance performance, stability, and scalability. You will play a pivotal role in leading the team and working closely with internal and client stakeholders throughout the entire software development lifecycle, from concept to deployment.
The ideal candidate will bring extensive experience in iterative development practices, a deep knowledge of version control (e.g., GitHub), and both conceptual and pragmatic problem-solving skills. You champion AI-assisted development across your teams, establishing practices that balance velocity with code quality and security. Your outstanding attention to detail and strong written and oral communication skills will enable you to work directly with business leaders and users, understanding their objectives, translating them into technical solutions, and leading your team to deliver. As a key technical leader, you will have the opportunity to mentor team members, lead the delivery of innovative solutions, drive the adoption of cutting-edge technologies, and foster your own professional growth.
Responsibilities of a Lead Engineer, Data Platform:
• Lead the technical creation, architecture, design, and implementation of products, ensuring their scalability, operational excellence, and significant business impact.
• Proactively introduce new methodologies, technologies, or optimizations that increase efficiency, scale, and value across development operations.
• Directly engage with clients and internal stakeholders to understand business goals, gather requirements, and translate them into detailed, actionable technical requirements.
• Define and be accountable for providing clear documentation across technical and non-technical audiences, including specifications, architecture decisions, and evaluation plans.
• Innovate and maintain product quality through prototyping and rapidly iterating solutions for viability, scalability, and data integrity.
• Lead, mentor, and develop technical talent, ensuring equitable opportunities and a culture of inclusion and respect.
• Uphold and advance code quality standards while managing data integrity risks through efficient QA strategies and engineering best practices.
• Evaluate and champion emerging technologies, frameworks, and tooling to enhance developer experience and product capabilities.
• Resolve complex and urgent application issues, taking ownership of the product’s technical health in and outside of business hours.
• Lead discussions with technical and non-technical stakeholders, serving as a key technical liaison between project stakeholders and the engineering team.
• Drive the culture and technical excellence of the team, contributing to talent acquisition and training programs.
• Ensure solutions adhere to SDLC and DevOps best practices, maintaining high standards of quality and security across all phases of development.
• Establish and champion AI-assisted development practices within your product area, setting guidelines that balance velocity with code quality, security, and maintainability.
Requirements:
• 8+ years of relevant data and software engineering experience
• Deep expertise with ETL/ELT tooling, data pipeline architecture, and large-scale data processing
• Deep expertise in SQL, Python, and modern data engineering frameworks
• Strong experience with cloud-based platforms and data services (e.g., GCP, AWS, BigQuery, Databricks)
• Deep experience working with business users and clients to understand goals and gather requirements
Preferred:
• Experience working within a scaled Agile framework (e.g., SAFe) at an enterprise level.
• Experience with, or a strong demonstrable interest in, agentic AI technologies and their practical applications.
• Experience with data-intensive applications containing AI, machine learning, or statistical tooling
• Deep expertise with APIs for large-scale data retrieval, integration, and platform interoperability
• Experience implementing QA processes and QA automation
• Experience in the digital marketing and measurement space
• Experience with data governance, quality frameworks, and data integrity management
• Experience building and deploying containerized, cloud-native data applications
Pay Transparency
At Ovative, we offer a transparent view into three core components of your total compensation package: Base Salary, Annual Bonus, and Benefits. The salary range for this position below is inclusive of an annual bonus. Actual offers are made with consideration for relevant experience and anticipated impact. Additional benefits information is provided below.
For our Lead Engineer positions, our compensation ranges from $125,000 to $175,000, which is inclusive of a 25% bonus.
Benefits of Working at Ovative Group:
We provide strong, competitive, holistic benefits that understand the importance of your life inside and out of work.
Culture:
Culture matters and we’ve been recognized as a Top Workplace for ten years running because of it. We demand trust and transparency from each other. We believe in doing the hard and complicated work others put off. We’re open in communication and floor plan. We’re flat – our interns sit next to VPs, our analysts work closely with senior leaders, and our CEO interacts with every single person daily. Put together, these elements help foster an environment where smart people can support each other in performing to their highest potential.
Ovative is committed to fostering an inclusive environment where everyone can participate and thrive. We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, including on the basis of race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Our policies reflect this commitment—for example, our medical leave benefits are inclusive of same-sex partners, ensuring equitable care and support for all families.
Compensation and Insurance:
We strive to hire and retain the best talent. Paying fair, competitive compensation, with a large bonus incentive, and phenomenal health insurance is an important part of this mix.
We’re rewarded fairly and when the company performs well, we all benefit.
Tangible amenities we enjoy:
Access to all office spaces in MSP, NYC, and CHI
Frequent, paid travel to our Minneapolis headquarters for company events, team events, and in-person collaboration with teams
Generous paid vacation policy
401k match program
Top-notch health insurance options, inclusive of same sex partners
Family formation benefits including reimbursement options for fertility, pregnancy, and parenting needs
Monthly stipend for your mobile phone and data plan
Sabbatical program
Charitable giving via our time and a financial match program
Shenanigan’s Day
Working at Ovative won’t be easy, but if you like getting your hands dirty, driving results, and being surrounded by the best talent, it’ll be the most rewarding job you’ll ever have. If you think you can make us better, we want to hear from you!