Head of Data Engineering & Platforms

Overview

Generali Real Estate, one of the world's leading real estate asset managers, is seeking a strategic and visionary Head of Engineering to join its senior technology team. This is a pivotal role, reporting directly to the Head of Innovation & Data.

The successful candidate will be a transformative leader responsible for guiding the architectural evolution of our technology platforms, leading a team and fostering a culture of engineering excellence. This position offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of real estate technology by building a scalable, secure, and AI-ready technology stack that will serve as the engine for our data-driven investment strategies.

Responsibilities

• Architectural Leadership & Strategy: Spearhead the architectural design and long-term evolution of our technology platforms, ensuring exceptional scalability, security, and resilience. Drive strategic integration with our proprietary data lakehouse, 'One Lake' , as the central data backbone and leverage vector databases to support advanced AI and machine learning capabilities
• Team Leadership & Delivery Management: Lead, mentor, and manage a team. Implement and oversee agile development processes to guarantee high-quality, on-time delivery of software projects, ensuring all code adheres to Group compliance policies and stringent quality standards
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Innovation: Act as the primary engineering stakeholder in collaborations with Data Science, Product Management, and Group IT functions. Co-develop and execute the technology roadmap to enable AI-driven solutions, predictive analytics, and sophisticated workflow automations across the business
• Modern Engineering Practices & DevOps Culture: Champion and embed modern engineering best practices within a regulated enterprise environment. Drive the adoption of CI/CD pipelines, containerisation (Docker/Kubernetes), API-first design principles, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to enhance development velocity and operational stability
• Technical Performance & Operational Excellence: Define, monitor, and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) for platform health, system performance, and operational uptime. Proactively identify and resolve technical debt, performance bottlenecks, and security vulnerabilities to support the ongoing digital transformation of our global real estate portfolio

Requirements

Essential Requirements

• Experience: A minimum of 5 years of demonstrable experience in a senior engineering leadership role (e.g., Head of Engineering, Engineering Manager, Lead Architect), preferably within a data-intensive environment
• Leadership: Proven experience in people management, with a track record of mentoring and developing data engineering teams. A strong ambition for continued managerial and strategic growth is essential
• Technical Acumen: Exceptional proficiency in Python is mandatory, with the ability to set coding standards, conduct architectural reviews, and guide technical decision-making
• Mindset: A proactive, "builder" mentality combined with a hands-on approach to problem-solving. The candidate must possess a deep-seated commitment to technical excellence, quality, and meticulous execution

Preferred Qualifications

• Data Engineering Expertise: Proven, hands-on experience in Data Engineering, particularly within the AWS ecosystem (e.g., S3, Redshift, Glue, EMR, Lambda)
• Industry Experience: Previous experience within the Real Estate, Asset Management, or FinTech sectors is a significant advantage
• Data Architecture: Experience in designing, building, or managing enterprise-level data lake or lakehouse architectures
• Regulated Environments: Experience operating and delivering technology solutions within a large, regulated enterprise context

Company Profile

Generali Real Estate S.p.A. is one of the world's leading real estate asset managers with around €36.2 billion of assets under management as of Q3 2024, and operating units located in the main European cities. The company's integrated business model covers the full scope of asset management activities and the entire real estate value chain. A series of cross-border investment vehicles, managed by the specialized asset manager Generali Real Estate S.p.A. Società di Gestione del Risparmio, aims to create long-term value for investors by investing in assets characterized by good locations, high liquidity and strong underlying leasing dynamics*. The portfolio under management comprises a unique mix of historical and modern properties, ranging from landmark buildings to new architectural masterpieces, which has enabled the company to develop best-in-class skills in the fields of sustainability, urban development and technological innovation.

Generali Real Estate is part of Generali Investments, a platform of asset management firms, delivering a portfolio of specialist capabilities with €632 bn and more than 2,200 investment specialists (source: Generali Investments Holding S.p.A. data as at end of Q3 2024 gross of double counting).

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