Senior Data Platform Engineer (dbt, Databricks, Apache Spark, Python) – Albert Heijn – Zaandam

Wat ga je doen?

Retail media is booming, and we’re building a cutting‑edge platform to support all Ahold brands in Europe with a comprehensive retail media suite. Get to work in a high traffic environment on a SaaS solution that will be utilized by approximately 15 different brands across Europe.

You are a hands‑on engineer who enjoys solving complex technical challenges and taking ownership of technical initiatives. You combine strong data engineering expertise with the ability to collaborate closely with peers, share knowledge, and help raise engineering quality across the team.

This is how you will reinvent food retail tech.

• Help establish and evolve engineering best practices in Databricks, Spark, dbt, Python, testing, observability, and CI/CD.
• Take a leading role in migrating existing data pipelines to a modern dbt-based platform, helping define standards, patterns, and ways of working for the wider team.
• Design and evolve scalable batch and streaming data platforms that process millions of records across multiple Ahold Delhaize brands.
• Support and coach fellow data engineers through knowledge sharing, code reviews, and shared engineering standards.
• Embed test automation in the way data engineers work, so it is part of delivery rather than a separate step.
• Guard the data models and the integrity of the data we hand to consumers.
• Build self‑service models so other teams can work on the data platform themselves.
• Improve the reliability, scalability, performance, and cost‑efficiency of our data platform and pipelines.
• Take ownership of data quality standards and operational excellence across our data products.
• Partner with platform engineers and architects to shape the future direction of our data platform.
• Lead technical discussions, evaluate architectural trade‑offs, and help teams make sound engineering decisions.

Your new team and office.
In the ad‑tech cluster, we are developing and implementing a retail media SaaS solution for all Ahold Delhaize brands in Europe. Retail media involves selling advertisement space on our digital touchpoints or in‑store. Examples include:

• Promoting brands like Tony Chocoloney when customers search for chocolate on our website or app.
• Displaying advertisements on big screens inside and outside stores.
• Featuring supplier‑branded banners on homepage or category pages.
• Exploring new territories as retail media is a rapidly growing field.

Our ad‑tech cluster, part of the Customer Tech Platform, is responsible for a flexible, cost‑efficient, high‑end retail media suite with extensive functionality and a growing number of brand users.
We work in a highly collaborative and horizontally organized team without formal technical lead roles. We value engineers who take ownership, contribute proactively, and help shape technical decisions together.
We have a scale‑up vibe with 5 teams and counting. A mature agile approach (no frameworks) helps you excel and showcase your skills. Our teams work in a hybrid way from both home and our office next to Zaandam station.

Making room for differences
We believe that everyone should feel comfortable being themselves and feel welcome and valued at work. We embrace different perspectives, experiences and backgrounds, and actively work to build engaged teams where everyone has the opportunity to contribute. We believe that different perspectives help us make better decisions and achieve better results together.
We look at the talents, knowledge, experience and personality you bring. Don’t meet every requirement but still see yourself in this role? We encourage you to apply. We welcome candidates with different backgrounds and experiences and are curious to hear what you can bring and what you would like to contribute.

The recipe for maximum impact
Fundamentals

• 5+ years of experience in data engineering.
• Extensive hands‑on experience with dbt, including data modeling, testing, and incremental processing.
• Strong hands‑on experience with Databricks and Apache Spark in production environments, with a clear understanding of the technical concepts behind them.
• Strong SQL skills.
• Strong Python software development skills.
• Strong experience designing and operating batch and streaming data pipelines.
• Experience with modern data platform architectures such as lakehouse and medallion architectures.
• Experience optimizing performance, reliability, and cloud costs at scale.
• Experience with Terraform and infrastructure‑as‑code practices.

Collaboration and Enablement

• Proven ability to mentor and support other engineers through coaching, code reviews, and shared engineering standards.
• Experience making test automation part of how data engineers work day to day.
• Ownership of data model governance and the integrity of data output.
• Experience moving a platform towards self‑service, so other teams can build on it without going through you.
• Proactive and hands‑on, with a strong sense of ownership and the ability to take initiative.
• Strong opinions on data engineering best practices backed by practical experience.
• Ability to drive technical standards and engineering quality across teams.
• Comfortable leading technical discussions and explaining architectural trade‑offs.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

Nice to have

• Experience with Databricks Asset Bundles (DABs) and CI/CD practices.
• Experience with advanced streaming architectures and event‑driven systems.
• Experience with data observability, monitoring, and governance tooling.
• Experience with Scala.
• Experience in retail, e‑commerce, or other high‑volume data environments.
• Understanding of Kafka
• Experience migrating existing pipelines or warehouses to dbt

What we offer.
At Albert Heijn we aim to grow, and this is only possible if you grow along with us. As we work together to build our brand and your career, you can count on (based on 40 hours per week):

• An annual salary up to 105K including holiday allowance and a flexible bonus. Depending on your level of seniority and experience;
• A minimum of 20 days paid vacation, optionally 12.5 days extra. Do you want to take that extra time off, or would you rather convert the extra days into discounts or sell them for cash? You’re the end boss!;
• Flexible working hours;
• Access to a challenging training curriculum – AH Tech Academy;
• An excellent pension plan where we as an employer contribute 4,5 more than you as an employee;
• A travel allowance or a NS‑business card for traveling to and from Zaandam by train;
• Attractive discounts on various insurance policies;
• 10% staff discount on groceries in all Albert Heijn stores, to a maximum of €300 per year;
• A free Mijn Albert Heijn Premium membership with many benefits;
• A company laptop and telephone.

We’re Albert Heijn, food retail reinventors.
Albert Heijn goes way back. More than 135 years, to be exact. So for millions of people, food shopping is synonymous with the Albert Heijn brand. We didn’t achieve this with a complacent, ‘hey, if it works today, it’ll work tomorrow’ approach, but by continually rethinking our propositions and staying plugged in to customer demands. More than 125,000 colleagues? Check. Over 1,250 stores in the Netherlands and Flanders? Check. The leading online food retail platform? Check, we build, run and love it.

Together we make eating better the easy choice. For everyone.
The world around us has changed, and significantly at that. These changes have impact on the lives of our customers, colleagues and partners. And therefore, also on Albert Heijn. We’re moving towards a new world with new opportunities and challenges. Albert Heijn wants more people to eat fresher, healthier and more sustainable food. Eating brings us together, keeps us healthier and contributes positively to the world. Our mission is: Together we make eating better the easy choice. For everyone.
Albert Heijn the Netherlands is B Corp certified. This underscores our purpose, through which we aim to contribute to a healthier, more social, and sustainable society. B Corp certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability and transparency.

Do you want to play an active role in changing the food retail landscape as we know it? Would you like to learn more first, before you apply to Albert Heijn? We’re happy to tell you everything about this vacancy!

Wat we vragen?

• True tech‑savvy
• Passion for data
• High focus on quality