Join us as we Rise to the Challenge

Duties, Responsibilities & Other

The Lead Data Engineer is a senior, hands-on technical leader responsible for owning and shaping KCI’s enterprise data foundation, with a strong emphasis on Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (D365 FO) and Dataverse / Project Operations. This role ensures ERP and operational data is accurately modeled, governed, and made analytics- and AI-ready for Power BI and emerging use cases.

This person serves as the authoritative gatekeeper and enabler of enterprise data — owning the data contract that ERP developers, report developers, and Power BI developers build upon. They define how data is exposed through SQL views, semantic models, and curated datasets, ensuring that no developer builds directly on raw ERP tables without a governed, well-documented, and trustworthy data layer beneath them.

This position sits within the Enterprise Technology organization led by the CTO and reports through Enterprise Systems, which focuses on the operation and evolution of ERP and other core business systems. The role works closely with ERP developers and Power BI developers to establish trustworthy, well-documented data assets. It is ideal for someone who is motivated by creating something meaningful, bringing rigor to ERP, and growing with the platform as the organization evolves toward Microsoft Fabric.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities*:

• Serve as the technical owner for enterprise data engineering related to D365 FO, Dataverse / Project Operations, and related operational systems
• Bring deep ERP expertise to eliminate ambiguity and ensure data is sourced, transformed, and represented correctly
• Design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines that stage, transform, and curate ERP and operational data for analytics and AI
• Design and own the semantic data layer — including SQL views, reusable curated datasets, and gold-layer models — that developers and report builders consume; raw ERP tables are not accessed directly without a governed abstraction layer
• Establish and govern modern data architecture patterns, including medallion layers (bronze, silver, gold)
• Partner closely with ERP developers and Power BI / report developers to ensure enterprise data is consistently modeled, performant, and analytics-ready; serve as the primary point of contact for data questions, data access, and data structure guidance
• Act as the dedicated data enablement resource for Power BI and report developers — proactively surfacing available datasets, documenting common reporting tables and fields, and ensuring developers have what they need to build confidently without guessing at ERP data structures
• Enable AI and solution teams by providing trusted, well-curated data assets suitable for experimentation and production use
• Collaborate with the Data Operations Manager to align ingestion processes, data quality checks, monitoring, and operational support
• Own a living enterprise data dictionary and catalog covering the most commonly used D365 FO and Dataverse tables, fields, domains, data lineage, refresh paths, and semantic meaning — with business-plain definitions that report developers and BI developers can rely on without needing to decode raw ERP schema
• Establish practical standards for SQL development, data modeling, testing, and deployment
• Provide hands-on technical leadership and set direction without direct people management (initially)
• Translate analytics and AI needs into clear, executable data designs grounded in ERP reality
• Communicate data risks, dependencies, and opportunities to leadership
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Education and/or Work Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical or analytical field, or equivalent experience
• 7+ years of experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, or enterprise data platforms
• Deep, hands-on experience with ERP data, specifically Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (Dataverse / Project Operations strongly preferred)
• Advanced SQL expertise, including complex transformations, performance tuning, data validation, and the design of reusable SQL views and semantic models that serve as the governed data layer for developers and report builders
• Demonstrated experience enabling Power BI and report developers with well-modeled, documented datasets — including the ability to explain data structure, field definitions, and join logic clearly to non-ERP-expert developers
• Strong understanding of data modeling for analytics and reporting
• Proven ability to document complex data structures clearly and accurately
• Ownership mindset with the ability to lead through expertise and influence

Education and/or Work Experience Preferred:

• Experience with cloud data platforms such as Azure Synapse, Azure Data Factory, or Microsoft Fabric
• Familiarity with Python or similar languages for data processing or orchestration
• Exposure to AI or machine-learning initiatives from a data enablement perspective
• Experience contributing to data governance, lineage, or cataloging efforts

Certificates, licenses, and/or Registrations Preferred:

• Microsoft certifications in data engineering, analytics, or enterprise application architecture (e.g., Azure Data Engineer, Fabric Analytics Engineer, or Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations)