Senior Data Engineer (Data Business Partner)

About the role

REA Group, a property services company, is hiring a permanent Senior Data Engineer (Data Business Partner) in Melbourne. The role sits in the Data Mesh Enablement Squad, which helps data domains own, govern and productise their data, and is part of Launchpad, which provides REA's technology and data platform. It is not a typical engineering role: it starts with coaching, pairing and working alongside teams, then moves to hands-on engineering as data domain maturity grows.

Key responsibilities

• Partner with Data Domain Owners and Data Product Owners to embed ownership, improve data operating practices and act as the first point of contact for data management guidance.
• Embed data standards, guardrails and data-as-a-product practices, turning governance, privacy and security requirements into practical guidance.
• Apply, monitor and remediate data health by improving quality, reliability and observability, and track recurring issues and root causes.
• Coach teams in data-as-a-product thinking and support the full lifecycle of data products, from discovery to retirement.
• Uplift data management capability through coaching and pairing, and share patterns and best practices across the Data Business Partner network.
• Capture feedback from data domains and validate that standards and platform capabilities work in real delivery contexts.
• Identify cross-domain data opportunities, contribute to data communities of practice and represent domain views in enterprise forums.
• Track and communicate the value delivered, measure adoption, maturity and data health improvements, and prioritise partnership effort.

Required profile

• Strong hands-on experience as a data engineer with modern data platforms, pipelines, models and data quality practices.
• Solid understanding of data-as-a-product concepts, including ownership, lifecycle management, data health, metadata and governance.
• Experience working closely with product managers and delivery teams to turn standards into production-ready data products.
• Proven ability to coach, enable and uplift capability.
• Comfortable in federated, influence-based environments with ambiguity, and strong stakeholder management skills.
• Enterprise mindset, clear communication skills and ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

What we offer

• A hybrid and flexible approach to working.
• Flexible leave options, including birthday leave and the option to purchase additional leave.
• Flexible parental leave for primary and secondary carers.
• The Because We Care program, with volunteering leave, community grants, matched payroll giving and a Community Café that donates 100% of its revenue to charity.
• Hackdays.