Data Engineering Hiring Advisory
Hire Data Engineers Who Can Build Production Systems
Hiring data engineers is hard.
Most resumes look good. Most interviews test the wrong things. Many teams end up hiring candidates who can talk about systems but struggle to build and operate them in production.
With over 15 years of experience in the industry, I current work as a Principal Engineer at a leading fintech. I have helped companies design hiring processes that identify engineers who can actually deliver in real-world data systems.
What I Help With
Designing the Hiring Process
- Defining the right roles and seniority levels
- Writing realistic job descriptions
- Avoiding overbroad or misleading requirements
- Aligning expectations between engineering, data, and leadership
Interview Design and Calibration
- Designing interview loops for data engineers
- Creating practical, production-relevant interview exercises
- Evaluating trade-offs, not trivia
- Calibrating interviewers to reduce false positives and false negatives
Candidate Evaluation and Second Opinions
- Reviewing candidate profiles and experience
- Participating in technical interviews as an independent evaluator
- Providing structured feedback on strengths and risk areas
- Helping you decide when to hire, pass, or level differently
Building the First Data Team
- Hiring the first senior or principal data engineer
- Avoiding early hires that lock you into bad architecture
- Structuring teams for growth, not just delivery
- Establishing engineering standards from day one
Common Problems This Solves
- "We keep hiring strong resumes but weak execution"
- "Interviews don't reflect the work we actually do"
- "We don't know how senior this candidate really is"
- "We need to hire our first data engineer and can't afford mistakes"
- "Our hiring bar is inconsistent across interviewers"
Who This Is For
This service is a good fit if you are:
- A startup or scale-up hiring data engineers
- Building your first data or platform team
- Struggling to assess senior or principal candidates
- Lacking deep data engineering experience in-house
- Wanting to hire fewer people, but hire better
Who This Is Not For
This is not a fit if you are:
- Looking for high-volume recruiting
- Expecting candidate sourcing or CV pipelines
- Hiring primarily junior or entry-level roles
- Treating hiring as an HR-only function
Engagement Models
Interview Loop Design
Short engagement to design or fix your data engineering interview process.
Interview Participation
I join your interview loop as a senior evaluator and provide structured feedback.
Hiring Advisory Retainer
Ongoing support during active hiring phases.
Clear scope. No commissions. No resume forwarding.
Work With Me
If hiring the wrong data engineer would cost you months of lost progress, this service is designed to reduce that risk.
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