Staff Engineer - Data Platform Enablement (Azure, Databricks, PySpark)

How you can make a difference

Are you ready to engineer the future of retail at Albert Heijn? As a Staff Engineer in the Data Differentiation Platform (DDP), you will be a hands-on technical leader, empowering product teams through robust platforms, tools, and frameworks. Join our Data Platform Enablement team and help drive our Data Mesh strategy, building scalable data enablement products and setting the technical direction for distributed systems.

This is how you will reinvent food retail.

• Technology (50%): You lead by example as a hands-on engineer, tackling complex technical challenges and designing the data enablement products that expose our platform’s capabilities. By architecting scalable solutions on Databricks and developing services that integrate seamlessly with our data platform, you raise the engineering bar and ensure our stack remains cutting-edge and robust.
• Strategy & Alignment (25%): You partner with fellow Staff Engineers and Enterprise Architects to shape the technical direction of our data platform. You are the bridge between vision and execution, translating high-level platform strategy into concrete technical initiatives and acting as a primary technical spokesperson within the engineering organization.
• People Management (15%): You are a mentor and a multiplier. You support Senior Engineers and Tech Leads in their growth toward staff-level impact, fostering a strong culture rooted in quality, ownership, and collaborative excellence across the cluster.
• General (10%): You drive cross-team technical alignment by facilitating discussions and sharing knowledge through engineering guilds. You help harmonize engineering practices across the organization, ensuring our learning platforms and standards evolve alongside our technology.

Your new team and office.
At Albert Heijn, we are engineering the future of retail. You’ll work with inspiring peers in data, digital, and tech—a diverse community with a shared goal: making (online) shopping simpler and more inspiring. We invest heavily in technology and your career. Our teams work hybrid: from home and at our office next to Zaandam train station.

As a Staff Engineer in the Data Differentiation Platform (DDP), you are a role model for excellence in software engineering. You act hands-on as a highly skilled technical sparring partner for our teams.

You will join the Data Platform Enablement team, the driving force behind our Data Mesh strategy. Rather than building domain data products ourselves, we empower product teams by developing the platforms, tools, and frameworks they need to work with data independently.

Our team builds data enablement products: software applications that combine robust application engineering with large-scale data processing. These include internal platforms, APIs, and frameworks that integrate with Databricks, data pipelines, data quality frameworks, and governance systems.

You will operate at the intersection of software engineering and data engineering: setting the technical direction for robust, scalable distributed systems; defining architectural standards for high-performance RESTful APIs and backend services (primarily in Python); and guiding teams in the usage and integration of Databricks, orchestration of complex data pipelines, and seamless interoperability between services.

Don’t check all the boxes? Neither do we 😉.

The recipe for maximum impact.
We are looking for an experienced data engineer with a software-first mindset. You possess a deep software engineering understanding and a proven track record of delivering high-quality, reliable, and scalable technical solutions. You view data platforms as high-scale software products. Your expertise lies in building data-intensive systems and delivering seamless data access through well-structured Python-based APIs.

The Technical Core:

• Software Engineering for Data Platforms: Experience building internal platforms or developer tooling that enable other teams to work with data at scale.
• Extensive Databricks Experience: Extensive experience with Unity Catalog, (Serverless) compute and access control configurations, with a focus on governance and secure data enablement.
• Cloud Native Architect: Proven experience building data-intensive applications (real-time and batch) on Azure, leveraging cloud-native services and architectural patterns.
• DevAI / GenAI savvy: Embrace DevAI and GenAI as second nature, driving innovation and automation at every step.
• Proficiency in Spark: Solid understanding of Apache Spark, its distributed processing model, and why a framework like Spark is required in large-scale data environments.
• Engineering Rigor: A background in CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), and engineering performance practices (e.g. DORA metrics).
• Modern Data Stack: Fundamental understanding of Parquet, Delta Lake, and other Open Table Formats (OTFs), including their architectural implications.
• Containerization: Solid experience with Docker and Kubernetes for deploying and operating scalable services.

The Leadership Core:

• T-Shaped Technical Leadership: You pair world-class coding expertise with a deep mastery of software design and the communication skills necessary to align diverse stakeholders on complex technical visions.
• Trusted Technical Partner: Teams seek you out to help solve complex architectural challenges.
• Performance Driver: You have the ability to motivate engineering teams and boost their performance through clear communication and technical mentorship.

What we offer.

• Hybrid working
• Wellbeing initiatives
• Cross brand career options

Meet your colleagues

"We need to offer the best digital experience: that's our goal!" Robert Němec Solution Architecture Manager

"An endless race we must win" Christy Elgee Manager of Cyber Defense and Operations, Ahold Delhaize USA