Head of Consulting (Data Engineering & AI)
At DATAPAO, data ignites passion, community fuels collaboration, and growth knows no bounds. We are a leading Data Engineering and Data Science consulting company, recognized for our innovation and rapid growth. We have been named Databricks EMEA Emerging Business Partner of the Year and have achieved a second consecutive appearance on the Financial Times FT1000 list.
Organizational Context
As the Head of Consulting, you will report directly to our CEO. You will oversee the whole Consulting Business Unit consisting of three distinctive areas: Data Engineering, AI, and Delivery Excellence (~25 people, to grow to ~40 in 2025).
In this role, you will head our technical delivery efforts and shape our mission from the driver's seat.
You will initially join as a stand-alone individual contributor reporting to the CEO. Within the first few months, you will progressively take over the delivery teams’ management. Once fully onboarded, which we estimate to be close to six months, you’ll join DATAPAO’s Leadership Team as Head of Consulting.DATAPAO's Consulting Business
Our Consulting arm is an innovation powerhouse, driving 70%+ of our annual revenue. We provide world-class, end-to-end Cloud, Data Engineering, and Data Science solutions, helping our customers navigate the complexities of modern data solutions.-
Customer Obsession: Our operations are built upon a customer-first philosophy, making us a distinguished partner in the consulting arena. This focus is not just our differentiator—it’s our commitment.
- Engineering & Consulting Excellence: Solid engineering principles and exceptional consulting skills are the core of our community. We seek excellence in everything we do, and we're firm believers that only by combining the two we can build a world-class consultancy.
How will you make an impact?
This is our most critical role in 2025. Hence, your impact and responsibilities will span across multiple dimensions:
Delivery
- Scale and empower the data engineering, AI, and delivery excellence teams to achieve efficient delivery as per our yearly growth plan.
Leadership & Culture
- Lead multiple teams with diverse backgrounds (Data Engineers, Data Scientists, Project Managers) and possibly more in the future.
- Scale and support leaders of the above-mentioned teams in strategic, business, and operational topics.
- Build a high-performing team culture grounded on the pillars of high-quality tech delivery and exceptional consulting skills. In doing so, you'll often need to lead by example, motivate and inspire people, and lead through others.
Operational Excellence
- Ensure the quality of our delivery across our customer engagements.
- Work with the Delivery Excellence Team to improve operational excellence through process development and optimization. You’ll also build and maintain the reporting system on our delivery performance and financial metrics.
- Establish and drive initiatives or programs intended to improve the team's consulting skills or further scale our business relationships.
- Own the P&L of the Consulting organization.
Client Relationships
- Collaborate with the Sales Team to foster client relationships and support our business development efforts (e.g., pre-sales support).
- Handle customer escalations (in collaboration with our PMs and Delivery Manager) and support conflict resolution.
Cross-functional Collaboration
- To reach our mission and vision, you’ll collaborate and align strategic goals with all the other business units and functions (Marketing for GTM topics, People on hiring and people development topics, and Finance for business planning scopes).
How will measure success in this role?
The following aspects will weigh heavily in assessing one's impact in this role:
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Efficient Delivery: Measured as delivered revenue vs. the finance plan and gross margin. This is something that you'll drive from your role by:
- Building the right team and culture
- Achieving the right seniority & skills mix in the team
- Aligning with Sales and Recruitment
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Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Customer obsession is ingrained in our culture, so we always strive to assess the quality of the service we provide to our customers.
- eNPS & Upward Feedback: Great delivery and customer satisfaction cannot be achieved without rallying the team. Hence, we'd always collect feedback from your teams and leads on your ability to "(...) know the way, go the way, and show the way.
What does it take to fit the bill?
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Leadership Experience. You need to excel at leading through others, empowering team leaders, mentoring, and unblocking people.
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Proven track record in scaling up tech or consulting organizations. You have meaningful experience scaling up teams, optimizing organizational structures, and building culture (preferably in a rapidly growing tech or tech-consulting environment). We expect at least a few years of experience as a lead of leads as you'll need to look after ~25 people and 5 leads to start with. And this tally will grow meaningfully over the next 12-18 months.
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Consulting mindset. While we're open to considering candidates from outside the industry, you must understand (or want to) how resourcing and delivery work in the professional services model. An obsession with customer success and the openness to working across the business side of things are also essential for succeeding in this role.
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Engineering mindset. You're an adamant supporter of sound software engineering principles and building highly performant teams. Ideally, you have a background in data engineering and/or AI, but that's not a must. Other backgrounds could also work as long as you're dedicated to scaling yourself up in the field of data & AI.
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Agency. Adaptability. Resilience. The consulting industry is fast-paced by default, and you can imagine how data & AI consulting is nowadays. We'd expect you to be highly autonomous in your work, excel at managing unexpected events, be able to make decisions under stress and show resilience in the face of various daily challenges.
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You are a skilled communicator that drives alignment. You have excellent storytelling skills and can confidently educate audiences on tech and non-tech concepts. Furthermore, you’re great at building trust and driving alignment across levels and teams.
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Financial acumen. You will own the delivery function’s P&L and must operate the organization with a healthy gross margin.
What will the selection look like?
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Screening Interview (~60 minutes). Our Head of People will run it. The purpose is to get to know you better and assess how you match the role's core requirements. This is also your chance to learn more about DATAPAO and our business model.
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Architectural Design Interview (~60 minutes). Two of our data engineers will run this round. The scope is to assess your technical prowess in setting up scalable infrastructures. While we don't expect you to code daily from this role, we think this is one of the technical areas where you should be able to advise and unlock your teams if needed.
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Business acumen (~60 minutes). A small panel led by our CEO will run this round. We'll send you a business study case in advance and ask you to prepare a presentation you'll deliver to the team on-site.
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Cultural & Leadership Block (~90 minutes). Our current Head of Consulting (who is transitioning internally into a new role) and Head of People will run this stage. The scope is to assess your leadership philosophy & skills and the likelihood of easily settling into our community. It might consist of two back-to-back 45-minute blocks, or we might as well run it in one go.
What do we offer?
At DATAPAO, we're on a mission to build one of the world's best consulting companies in its field: data engineering and AI. In the foreseeable future, the Head of Consulting is the most impactful role from which you can shape our journey and organizational success.
Here is a list of some other extras we offer:
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World-class educational benefits. You'll get access to Databricks' public and internal courses to learn about Distributed Data Processing, MLOps, Apache Spark, Databricks, and Cloud Migration. We'll pay for various data and cloud certifications, and you'll get dedicated time for learning and a flexible development budget for needs aligned with the role specifics.
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Flexible working hours and PTO days. We’re flexible with how many days you take off if that does not conflict with customer success and the work getting done. Additionally, it is up to you how many days you spend in the office. However, as a senior leader, we'd expect to spend face-to-face time with your team and mentor others recurrently. And we believe this can be achieved only through a balanced in-person- remote ratio.
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4 Weeks of Paternity Leave (if applicable). Because we think it’s important for both parents to be there when it matters the most.
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Healthcare benefits. We provide a generous private medical package via Generali.
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Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Through EAP, we offer our employees access to psychology, financial, and legal consulting services via phone or in person.
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Top-notch working equipment. You will get a MacBook Pro, a Herman Miller chair, standing desks in the office, and whatever else is needed to give your best.
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The chance to shape our culture. Overseeing the biggest team in DATAPAO is a rare opportunity to influence how our organizational culture evolves over time. Additionally, you'll join the field of data and AI, and we trust there is no better time than today to do so.
- A cozy office in the heart of Budapest (close to Oktogon), well-stocked with snacks, drinks, coffee, and beverages. An annual team building, movie and wine-tasting nights with the team, and various community events are also on us.
About DATAPAO
At DATAPAO, we are delivery partners and the preferred training provider for Databricks, the creators of Apache Spark. Additionally, we are Microsoft Gold Partners in delivering cloud migration and data architecture on Azure. Our delivery partnerships enable us to work in a wide range of industries and with some of the most prominent global companies such as Norsk-Hydro, Richter, Bayer, Schufa, GetYourGuide, TechnoAlpin and Logically to name just a few.
As a training provider, we deliver onsite and online courses globally for Databricks and on our own. We have been teaching professionals at Apple, Amazon, Uber, Microsoft, T-Mobile, GE, Ericsson, and many more to improve their impact with data.For more insights into DATAPAO, check the below links:
- Designing and Implementing a Real-time Data Lake with Dynamically Changing Schema (EN) by Máté Gulyás (2021, Spark AI Summit)
- Productionising Machine Learning models (EN) by Máté Gulyás (2023, Mndwrk Event)
You can also follow us on LinkedIn for all the good stuff or just hit our recruitment team at jobs@datapao.com
We’re strong believers in scaling up a team without judgment or prejudice. What we really care about is working with the best people out there, no matter their background. And you should also not worry if you don't tick every box in the requirements. If you’re passionate about data and learning new things, you’ll fit right in, and we'd love to hear back from you.
When we hear back from you, we'd like you to know that we are committed to your privacy and keeping your data safe. We do not share your data with any third parties (except the ones we use to run our recruitment process) and keep your application for two years unless you ask us otherwise. We use your data solely for recruitment purposes, such as letting you know about new career opportunities at DATAPAO and/or managing your application.
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