Lead Data Engineer – Azure | NV1 | Canberra
Lead Data Engineer joining the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry's analytics section in Canberra, designing and building Azure and Databricks ETL/ELT pipelines, data products and Power BI visualisations. Hybrid role (3 office days/week), 12-month contract; requires Australian citizenship and eligibility for NV1 clearance.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Canberra, Australia
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Lead
- Employment
- Contract
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Category
- Data engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Australian citizenship required
- Must be able to obtain Negative Vetting Level 1 (NV1) security clearance
- At least 5 years' experience working as a data engineer
- Suitable qualifications or training in data engineering techniques
- Demonstrated experience developing ETL/ELT processes for complex and/or large data movement, transformation and/or visualisations, particularly in a cloud environment
- Experience preparing data optimised for query performance in cloud compute engines (e.g. Spark, graph databases, Azure SQL)
- Experience working with engineering, storage and analytics services in cloud infrastructure
- Strong written and oral communication skills
- Strong relationship building and negotiation skills
- Experience working collaboratively as part of an Agile development team
- Strong work ethic with ownership, leadership and ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team
Nice to have
- Experience working with Azure Data Factory and Databricks
- Experience/knowledge of working with Data Lake and Lakehouses
Full description
Lead Data Engineer
Australian citizenship required. Must be able to obtain Negative Vetting Level 1 security clearance.
Location: Canberra (Hybrid).
What to Submit
- A tailored resume in docx format
- Individual responses to each criterion (maximum 3000 characters per criterion)
RFQ Details
- RFQ ID: LH-08070
- Agency: Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
- Closing Date: Tuesday, 20 October 2026 – 11:59pm (Canberra time)
- Estimated Start Date: Monday, 09 November 2026
- Initial Contract Duration: 12 months
- Extension Term: 12 months
- Number of Extensions: 2
- Experience Level: Lead - EL1 equivalent
- Security Clearance: Must be able to obtain Negative Vetting Level 1 security clearance
- Location of Work: ACT
- Working Arrangements: Hybrid. Most of the section is located at Agriculture House in Canberra CBD. The standard expectation is for staff to attend the office three (3) working days each week. The section is supportive of flexible arrangements and consideration will be made to accommodate individual and collaboration needs. In-person attendance at important Agile ceremonies (currently held quarterly) and other important team / section events is a requirement.
- Maximum Hours: 40 hours per week
Job Details
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) is looking for a Data Engineer to join its Enterprise Analytics and Technology Services (EATS) section to work across its data and analytics platforms. We are seeking candidates with strong experience in developing Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) and Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) processes, and /or the development of data products and complex data visualisations.
The role will be responsible for design, development and testing activities across several data movement, data transformation, and data visualisation processes within DAFF. The data movement and transformation processes focus on the preparation of data for use in decision making processes across the department, utilising modern cloud technology (Azure & Databricks) to enable operational analytics use cases.
To be successful in the role, you must have a strong work ethic including taking ownership, providing leadership, having a high level of productivity, and working with a multi-disciplinary team in an Agile development environment. You must have suitable qualifications or training in data engineering techniques and at least 5 years’ experience working as a data engineer.