Sr Data Engineering Manager

McLane teammates, the driving force behind our success, are diverse professionals who work together seamlessly to keep our operations running smoothly. As a teammate, you will pair your dedication, expertise, and collaborative spirit with your fellow teammates to serve America’s most beloved brands. McLane leaders think long-term, act with purpose, and inspire high performance. They lead with accountability, communicate clearly, and drive results through collaboration, innovation, and continuous growth. They empower each teammate to learn from industry leaders, develop their skills, and build lasting connections nationwide.

We’re looking for an enthusiastic and experienced Sr. Data Engineering Manager who is passionate about applying AI while building and evolving modern data engineering pipelines. This leader will combine strong technical expertise with seasoned people leadership and the ability to understand stakeholder requirements, communicate effectively across technical and business teams, and translate business needs into scalable data solutions. The role will help build an AI-ready data ecosystem that supports analytics, automation, and digital supply chain outcomes.

This is a hybrid position which will require the candidate to report and work from the office at least three days a week. Therefore, interested candidates should be within a 50-minute radius from Temple, TX.

• →Define and execute the data engineering strategy and operating model. (domain teams, platform teams, governance) 
• →Lead the design, development, and modernization of scalable data engineering pipelines.
• →Champion the application of AI across data engineering practices, platforms, and products.
• →Lead cloud and hybrid platform modernization. (lakehouse, streaming, real-time + batch ingestion, legacy migration) 
• →Establish enterprise standards & architectures. (ELT/ETL, medallion, semantic layer, data modeling, streaming) 
• →Drive data governance. (quality, lineage, security, access, SLAs, data contracts) 
• →Ensure compliance & audit readiness. (privacy-by-design, SOX, GDPR/CCPA alignment) 
• →Deliver scalable, reliable, cost-optimized platforms. (performance engineering, FinOps) 
• →Build reusable data pipelines & domain data products enabling analytics and AI/ML. 
• →Partner with stakeholders and business leaders to understand requirements, translate business needs into technical solutions, and communicate priorities, tradeoffs, and outcomes effectively.
• →Implement DataOps practices. (CI/CD, testing, observability, incident response) 
• →Lead and develop high-performing teams. (hiring, coaching, succession planning) 
• →Manage vendor strategy, tooling, and technology selection. 
• →Drive continuous improvement through SLIs/SLOs, pipeline performance, data quality, and cost metrics.

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, or related field.
• Experience 7+ years in data engineering / data platform engineering, including 3+ years leading teams. (manager-of-managers preferred) 
• Seasoned leader with demonstrated success managing technical teams, priorities, and stakeholder expectations. 
• Strong enthusiasm for AI and demonstrated interest in applying AI to data engineering, automation, analytics, and business solutions.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills with the ability to translate technical concepts and requirements for both technical and non-technical audiences. 
• Data Engineering in GCP is preferred. 
• Cloud Composer (Airflow), Dataproc (Spark/PySpark), Dataflow, Dataform, BigQuery SQL transformations 
• Datastream (CDC), Cloud Storage (GCS), Pub/Sub, Knowledge Catalog, Data Quality frameworks, Metadata & lineage 
• Microsoft Fabric experience is a plus (Skillset listed below): 
  • Fabric Lakehouse, Fabric Notebooks (PySpark), Data Factory Pipelines, Dataflow Gen2, Spark SQL, Git / source control, REST APIs and JSON processing, Delta/Parquet file formats 
• Strong expertise in Spark, batch + streaming pipelines, and modern data architectures. 
• Advanced proficiency in SQL & Python. 
• Proven experience with ELT/ETL, orchestration, data modeling (dimensional/Data Vault), and metadata/lineage. 
• Expertise in DataOps & engineering excellence. (CI/CD, IaC, Git, monitoring, incident management) 
• Solid understanding of data governance, security, and privacy controls. (IAM, encryption, retention, lineage) 
• Experience translating business needs into technical solutions and driving cross-functional alignment. 
• Background in vendor evaluation, budgeting, and tool selection. 
• Strong communication skills with ability to influence at all levels. 
• Working knowledge of AI/ML, data science, or advanced analytics concepts.
• Ability to lead multiple priorities and large-scale initiatives simultaneously.
• This position requires the ability to read, write, and understand English at a level sufficient to perform job-related tasks effectively and safely. This includes understanding work instructions, safety protocols, and communications essential to the role. The requirement is directly related to the nature of the job and ensures compliance with workplace safety and operational standards.

• Teamwork oriented
• Organized
• Problem solver
• Detailed

We’ve been forging our path as a leader in the distribution industry since 1894. Building an expansive nationwide network of team members for 130+ years has allowed us to stay agile for our clients across the restaurant, retail, and e-commerce industries. We look to the future and are ready to continue making industry-defining moves by embracing the newest technology into our practices, continuing team member training, and emphasizing our people-centered culture.  

Candidates may be subject to a background check and drug screen, in accordance with applicable laws.  

All applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

For our complete EEO and Pay Transparency statement, please visit https://www.mclaneco.com/legal/employment/