About the company
Biorce is a pioneering Healthtech company dedicated to revolutionizing drug development through the power of AI. We are passionate about accelerating medical advancements and improving patient outcomes.
Our team comprises seasoned clinical research professionals, data scientists, and AI experts, working collaboratively to bridge the gap between cutting-edge technology and real-world clinical needs.
With an unwavering commitment to revolutionize healthcare, we envision a world where all patients benefit from accelerated and cost-effective access to treatments. Biorce is poised to redefine the landscape of healthcare, shaping a future where innovation and accessibility converge for the betterment of humanity.
About the role
We are seeking a Data Engineering Lead to head our data engineering team and serve as the department lead for our Barcelona hub. This is a senior, technical leadership role, a player-coach who is credible in architecture and code, but whose primary job is to build, grow, and multiply a high-performing team.
Biorce runs data engineering across two hubs, Barcelona and Austin keeping those teams working as one is central to this role. You will be the face of data engineering in Spain: the person who represents the function locally, builds our presence and employer brand in the Barcelona market, and partners closely with the Austin team to keep architecture, standards, and roadmap in sync across sites and time zones.
You will own the people, delivery, and health of the data engineering function at the Barcelona site: hiring and developing engineers (including senior ICs / Data Architect), driving execution against the platform roadmap, and setting the standards and culture, including how we responsibly adopt AI-first, agentic ways of working. You will be the connective tissue between the engineers building the platform and the data science, AI, MLOps, product, and clinical stakeholders who depend on it.
This is a rare chance to stand up and lead a team building a next-generation clinical data platform from the ground up, at the heart of our growing European presence.
Who We're Looking For
An experienced engineering leader who has led data or platform teams and still speaks the language fluently, someone engineers respect technically and want to work for. You care about people first, but you never lose sight of delivery, quality, and the realities of regulated clinical data. You are energized (not threatened) by an AI-first shift, and you know how to bring a team along through change.
You are equally comfortable running a 1:1, unblocking the mapping of a stubborn dataset into the common data model, defending a roadmap to leadership, and coaching an engineer on how (and when not) to trust a coding agent.
Key Responsibilities
People Leadership
- Lead, coach, and grow the Barcelona data engineering team including senior ICs and the Data Architect, through regular 1:1s, feedback, and career development.
- Work with the Head of Data to design hiring for the team: define roles, run a high-quality and fair interview process, and build a strong, diverse pipeline.
- Set clear expectations and run a fair, transparent performance and growth process; retain and develop top talent.
- Foster a healthy, inclusive, high-trust team culture as the on-site department lead.
Delivery & Execution
- Own delivery of the data engineering roadmap. Planning, prioritization, and predictable execution against platform milestones.
- Establish lightweight, effective engineering processes (agile/iterative delivery, code review, on-call/incident response, documentation standards).
- Track and communicate progress, risks, and trade-offs to Data / AI leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Balance speed of iteration with the reliability and compliance demands of clinical data.
Technical Direction (Player-Coach)
- Partner with the Data Architect to set and uphold technical standards for the hybrid open-source + Databricks + dbt on GCP platform.
- Provide credible technical guidance in design and architecture reviews; stay close enough to the work to make good calls and unblock the team.
- Champion quality: data reliability, lineage, observability, testing, and cost-efficiency (FinOps).
AI-First Culture & Adoption
- Drive responsible adoption of AI-first, agentic data engineering across the team, Claude Code, coding agents, and the self-healing/agentic warehouse vision.
- Establish team norms, guardrails, and review practices so AI-assisted work is fast and validated to clinical/regulated standards.
- Measure and improve how AI leverage translates into team velocity and quality.
Cross-Hub Collaboration & Local Leadership
- Keep the Barcelona and Austin data engineering teams working as one, aligned on architecture, standards, roadmap, and priorities, with clear ownership and smooth handoffs across time zones.
- Partner with Austin leadership to plan work coherently across sites, avoid divergence or duplication, and share learnings both ways.
- Be the face of data engineering in Spain, representing the function to local leadership, candidates, and partners, and building Biorce's presence and employer brand in the Barcelona market.
Stakeholder & Department Leadership
- Represent data engineering across data science, AI, MLOps, product, and clinical/regulatory teams.
- Ensure the team's work supports compliance with SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, and clinical data governance.
- Contribute to headcount planning, budgeting, and vendor/tooling decisions for the function.
Must-Haves
- 8+ years in data engineering / software engineering, including 3+ years leading data or platform engineering teams.
- Track record of hiring, growing, and retaining strong engineers, and running fair performance processes.
- Proven delivery leadership, planning and shipping complex data/platform work predictably.
- Strong technical credibility: hands-on background in data engineering with the ability to reason about Databricks/Spark, dbt, SQL/Python, and cloud (GCP) architecture, even if you no longer code daily.
- Experience leading teams through change or new ways of working (new platform, tooling, or process) with real adoption.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
- Experience working across distributed, multi-site teams and time zones, keeping them aligned and collaborative.
- Comfort acting as a visible local leader, representing a function externally and internally in-region.
- Genuine enthusiasm for AI-first / agentic engineering and a thoughtful view on adopting it responsibly.
- Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
Nice-to-Haves
- Experience standing up or leading a greenfield data platform or a new team/site.
- Experience in clinical, biomedical, or healthcare data and regulated environments (HIPAA, GDPR), including common data models (OMOP CDM, FHIR).
- Familiarity with AI coding assistants/agents (e.g., Claude Code) in an engineering org.
- Exposure to MLOps / data science partnership and productionizing ML data flows.
- Experience with FinOps / cloud cost management at scale.
- Prior experience as a hands-on data engineer or architect earlier in your career.
- Working proficiency in English; Spanish is a plus.
Why Join Us?
- Build and lead the team behind a next-generation clinical data platform and define what an AI-first data engineering function looks like in a regulated environment.
- A dynamic work environment with an international team, where collaboration and diversity thrive.
- Work alongside top talent, united by a shared purpose and committed to making a real impact.
- Comprehensive private health coverage to support your physical and mental well-being.
- Hybrid work model offering flexibility to balance your professional and personal life.
- Company events to celebrate achievements and enjoy time together.
- A MacBook and a best-in-class AI toolchain for you and your team.
- Our office is pet-friendly, you'll likely be greeted by a few wagging tails upon arrival.
By submitting this application, I agree that my personal data will be collected, processed, and retained by the company solely for the purposes of managing and assessing my candidacy.
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