Data/Reporting Team Lead

Focal Systems is a Silicon Valley based startup focused on retail AI solutions using deep learning computer vision. They provide industry-leading technology deployed at scale with top global retailers and have a strong engineering team based in Poland.

• Bachelor's degree in CS, EE, or equivalent practical experience.
• 7+ years of professional software/data engineering experience with ownership of production data systems.
• Strong hands-on skills in Python.
• Advanced SQL skills including query-plan analysis and optimization for large tables.
• Experience with modern cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake and transformation frameworks like DBT.
• Experience with CDC, streaming pipelines, and data-intensive applications.
• Proven track record in production data correctness including reconciliation and drift management.
• Broad stack knowledge including data, infrastructure, and backend development.
• Experience with CI/CD tools and Docker.
• Experience in compute/cost optimization, warehouse performance tuning, or BI/embedded analytics (Sigma) is a plus.
• Technical leadership experience with ability to raise engineering standards.
• Startup mentality and strong team player.
• Fluent in Polish and advanced English skills (written and spoken).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to present to non-technical stakeholders.
• Flexibility to adjust working hours for global team needs.
• Strong work ethic ensuring project completion and team commitments.

Team Leadership and Ownership:

• Lead a small senior data/reporting team while remaining hands-on in coding.
• Set the technical bar by planning, reviewing, mentoring, and owning outcomes end to end.

Data Platform and Pipeline Management:

• Own customer-facing reporting accuracy and reliability including imports, pipelines, reports, dashboards, and exports.
• Build and lead data platform components such as Snowflake CDC pipelines, DBT transformations, and layered data APIs.
• Engineer tooling for data quality including reconciliation, drift detection, and point-in-time state reconstruction.
• Optimize compute and cost through right-sizing pipelines and tuning queries for performance and cost.

Cross-team Collaboration:

• Partner with backend, analytics, and customer-facing teams to ensure reporting consistency across all customer surfaces.

Candidates must be fluent in Polish and have advanced English skills. Flexibility in working hours is required to support a global, time zone-diverse team.