Head of Data Engineering (Freelance)

We are currently supporting an early stage startup based in Ghent, who are looking for an experienced Head of Data Engineering to take ownership and scale their data engineering function. This is a senior, hands-on freelance role with a strong focus on building and scaling a modern data platform using Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

The successful candidate will play a key role in shaping the data architecture and setting best practices in a dynamic startup environment.

Role & Responsibilities

• Define and drive the data engineering strategy and roadmap in line with business needs
• Design, build, and scale a cloud-native data platform on Google Cloud Platform
• Develop and maintain reliable data pipelines (batch and, where relevant, streaming)
• Take ownership of architectural decisions, balancing scalability, performance, and cost
• Establish standards for data quality, data modelling, security, and governance
• Collaborate closely with founders, product, engineering, analytics, and business stakeholders
• Enable self-service analytics and data accessibility across the organisation
• Prepare the data platform for future use cases such as advanced analytics or machine learning
• Provide technical leadership and support future data engineering hires

Required Experience & Skills

• Extensive experience in data engineering, ideally with leadership or senior ownership responsibilities
• Strong hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform, including services such as:
• BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Dataflow / Apache Beam, Pub/Sub, Cloud Composer (Airflow)
• Excellent knowledge of SQL and Python
• Proven experience designing and operating modern data warehouse or lakehouse architectures
• Comfortable working in startup or scale-up environments with evolving requirements
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Nice to Have

• Experience with real-time or event-driven data architectures
• Familiarity with tools such as dbt, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, or Kubernetes
• Exposure to ML or AI data platforms on GCP
• Previous experience supporting startups through growth phases

Contract Details

• Freelance assignment (daily rate, long-term potential)
• Hybrid working model with regular presence in Ghent
• High level of autonomy and impact