Manager, Data Engineering

Sporting Life Group is a proudly Canadian family of retail banners, Sporting Life, Golf Town, and Team Town Sports, united by a shared passion for sport and active living.

From individual pursuits to team sports, we offer the best equipment, expert services, and experiences to help Canadians play, move, and live well.

Why Work Here?

• Access to our benefits package, with the choice of different levels of health, dental, and vision coverage to suit you.
• Employee discounts at Golf Town, Sporting Life, and Team Town Sports that are shareable with friends and family.
• Team-first culture that celebrates an active, sports lifestyle.
• Fun, fast-paced hybrid environment where your passion for sport and style belongs.
• Vendor Pro Deals and expert product training to fuel your knowledge and performance.
• Competitive pay and opportunities to grow your career in sports lifestyle.

What You'll Do;

As the Manager, Data Engineering for Sporting Life Group, you will lead the design, development, and operational support of enterprise data platforms and integration pipelines.

Within this role you will be hands-on experience managing end-to-end data engineering lifecycles, overseeing upgrades, resolving outages, and integrating with third-party applications while managing a team of data engineers, partner with cross-functional business and IT stakeholders, and ensure data systems are reliable, scalable, and aligned with organizational goals.

To be successful in this role you will have a strong technical background in ETL, Azure Data Factory (ADF), Microsoft Fabric, Synapse, SQL, and modern data analytics tools such as Power BI.

Leadership & Management

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of data engineers.
• Drive best practices for data architecture, ETL design, and pipeline governance.
• Prioritize workload, allocate resources, and manage timelines for project delivery.
• Collaborate with data architecture, analytics, and application teams to support business initiatives.

Data Engineering & Architecture

• Oversee the design, development, and optimization of ETL/ELT pipelines using Azure Data Factory, Fabric Data Pipelines, Synapse, and related tools.
• Lead implementation and management of data solutions across SQL databases, lakehouse environments, and cloud analytics platforms.
• Architect efficient data models supporting analytics, reporting, and operational applications.
• Ensure data quality, lineage, and documentation standards are consistently applied.

Platform Management & Operations

• Oversee upgrades, deployments, and enhancements across Azure Data Services (ADF, Synapse, Fabric).
• Manage production support including incident management, troubleshooting, and coordination during outages.
• Implement monitoring and alerting for pipelines, databases, and integrations to prevent failures and minimize downtime.
• Establish SLAs, operational workflows, and performance optimization strategies.

Integrations & Third-Party Systems

• Lead integrations between internal systems and external third-party applications (e.g., ERP, CRM, Marketing, e-commerce platforms).
• Work with architecture and middleware teams to design secure, scalable data exchange patterns.
• Support API-based, event-driven, and batch integration workflows.

Analytics & Business Enablement

• Oversee Power BI data modeling, datasets, gateways, and reporting infrastructure.
• Ensure alignment between data engineering outputs and analytics/business intelligence needs.
• Partner with business stakeholders to translate data requirements into technical solutions.

What You'll Bring;

• 7–10+ years of experience in data engineering, ETL development, or data integration.
• 3–5+ years of technical leadership or managerial experience.
• Strong hands-on expertise with:
• Azure Data Factory (ADF)
• Microsoft Fabric / Synapse Analytics
• SQL Server / T-SQL
• ETL/ELT pipeline development
• Power BI (datasets, data models, gateways)
• Azure Data Lake, Lakehouse, Parquet, Delta
• Demonstrated experience supporting production systems, incident response, and platform upgrades.
• Strong understanding of integrations with third-party applications (APIs, Logic Apps, event-driven designs, etc.).

Preferred Qualifications;

• Experience with Azure DevOps, CI/CD for data pipelines, and automation frameworks.
• Knowledge of data governance, security, and compliance practices.
• Familiarity with ERP or CRM systems (e.g., D365, Salesforce) is an asset.
• Experience in performance tuning and cost optimization of Azure workloads.

Soft Skills

• Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management abilities.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities.
• Problem-solver with a focus on operational excellence and continuous improvement.
• Comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and guiding teams through ambiguity.

Sporting Life Group is an equal opportunity employer and committed to providing accommodations for persons with disabilities. In accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, please advise the Sporting Life Human Resources team of any accommodations required to ensure fair and equitable access through the recruitment and selection process.