Job Description

About us:
Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here

About the Role:
As a Lead Data Engineer, you will serve as the technical anchorfor the engineering team, responsible for designing and developing scalable, high-performance data solutions You will own and drive data architecturethat supports both functional and non-functional business needs, ensuring reliability, efficiency, and scalability
Your expertise in big data technologies, distributed systems, and cloud platformswill help shape the engineering roadmap and best practices for data processing, analytics, and real-time data serving You will play a key role in architecting and optimizing data pipelinesusing Hadoop, Spark, Scala/Java, and cloud technologiesto support enterprise-wide data initiatives.
Additionally, experience with API development for serving low-latency dataand Customer Data Platforms (CDP)will be a strong plus.

Key Responsibilities:

• Architect and build scalable, high-performance data pipelinesand distributed data processing solutionsusing Hadoop, Spark, Scala/Java, and cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)

• Design and implement real-time and batch data processing solutions, ensuring data is efficiently processed and made available for analytical and operational use.

• Develop APIs and data servicesto expose low-latency, high-throughputdata for downstream applications, enabling real-time decision-making.

• Optimize and enhance data models, workflows, and processing frameworksto improve performance, scalability, and cost-efficiency.

• Drive data governance, security, and compliancebest practices.

• Collaborate with data scientists, product teams, and business stakeholdersto understand requirements and deliver data-driven solutions

• Lead the design, implementation, and lifecycle managementof data services and solutions.

• Stay up to date with emerging technologiesand drive adoption of best practices in big data engineering, cloud computing, and API development

• Provide technical leadership and mentorshipto engineering teams, promoting best practices in data engineering and API design

About You:

• 7+ years of experience in data engineering, software development, or distributed systems.

• Expertise in big data technologiessuch as Hadoop, Spark, and distributed processing frameworks.

• Strong programming skills in Scala and/or Java(Python is a plus).

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure)and their data ecosystem(e.g., S3, BigQuery, Databricks, EMR, Snowflake, etc.).

• Proficiency in API developmentusing REST, GraphQL, or gRPCto serve real-time and batch data.

• Experience with real-time and streaming data architectures(Kafka, Flink, Kinesis, etc.).

• Strong knowledge of data modeling, ETL pipeline design, and performance optimization

• Understanding of data governance, security, and compliancein large-scale data environments.

• Experience with Customer Data Platforms (CDP) or customer-centric data processingis a strong plus.

• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work in complex, unstructured environments

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with experience working in cross-functional teams

Why Join Us?

• Work with cutting-edge big data, API, and cloud technologiesin a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

• Influence and shape the future of data architecture and real-time data servicesat Target.

• Solve high-impact business problemsusing scalable, low-latency data solutions

• Be part of a culture that values innovation, learning, and growth