iGaming:
If it’s iGaming, we know a thing or two. At Light & Wonder, It’s all about the games, and our digital team leads the global iGaming market, providing jaw-dropping content and innovative software that powers the world's most successful online gaming providers.

Position Summary

Light & Wonder is the global leader in cross-platform games and entertainment. The company brings together 5,000 employees from six continents to connect content between land-based and digital channels with unmatched technology and distribution. Guided by a culture that values daring teamwork and creativity, Light & Wonder builds new worlds of play, developing game experiences loved by players around the globe. The company’s OpenGaming(tm) platform powers the largest digital-gaming network in the industry. Light & Wonder is committed to the highest standards of integrity, from promoting player responsibility to implementing sustainable practices. To learn more, visit lnw.com.

Role Overview

We’re excited to offer a fantastic opportunity to play a critical role transforming our data capability, building out a cutting-edge new platform enabling innovative data products to drive better decisions, automation and better outcomes for our customers and players.

This truly is a rare opportunity to join a data rich, data hungry business with huge untapped potential and a small team raring to enable big things under the right leadership. We’re offering a special home for a special talent – the opportunity for someone who loves making a big impact, driving change and realising their fantastic ideas to do just that, every day.

We hope to find someone as passionate about data as we are, with a brilliant understanding of Engineering from the big picture to the smallest details who doesn’t blink in the face of challenges and never settles for a half good solution when a great one can be delivered.

We have a strong, people-based culture, which encourages everyone to be bold, own opportunities and strive to build better, in everything we do. Hence, this role is perfect for someone who challenges the status quo, thrives on the responsibility of leading complex projects and strives to deliver successful outcomes, which make stakeholders happy.

Who you are:

• You’re an expert. You really do know what you’re talking about. You’ve lived it, breathed it, had those cold chills when things go wrong, made mistakes and learnt from them. You have working knowledge of many technologies (Spark, Data Bricks, SQL, NoSQL DBs to name a few) and you keep up to date with data trends. And you know how everything fits together to create a robust Data Platform that works for end-users

• You’re passionate. You really do love data. You get excited by the art of the possible and you’re proud of what you do

• You’re positive. You rise to challenges. You love fast pace. You recognise potential issues but always maintain a positive mindset, focus on what you can do and celebrate every success like it’s your last

• You’re a simple talker. Your expertise runs deep but you can explain complex ideas in an easy to understand and engaging way to your technical peers, as well as non-technical stakeholders. Even children and grandparents get what you mean.

• You’re a straight talker – you don’t just say yes. You’re honest and not afraid to land messages people, particularly senior stakeholders, may not want to hear. You do so in the right way, with a positive, can-do attitude but never make promises you can’t keep

• You’re a creator. You are a curious and a natural innovator, finding the right solutions to problems and our people’s data needs, challenging the status quo - there must be a better way. If it can be imagined, you make it possible.

• You’re results hungry. You love seeing ideas through, become reality and deliver value to the business. You’re pragmatic in balancing perfection with progress and break things down into simple steps of continuous progress

• You’re organised. You make plans. You deliver plans. You keep people updated on plans. You don’t try to do too much. You keep things simple, preferring order to chaos.

• You’re a collaborator. You love working with others and will seamlessly get to know stakeholders from across the world, as well as your technical counterparts in other parts of the business. You’re a natural relationship builder, who quickly builds trust and maintains it through consistent, high-quality delivery

• You’re caring. You look out for others and put people first. You’re a nurturer who actively seeks to understand those you manage and are as passionate about their career development and success, as your own

What you’ll be doing

• Lead a small, talented team of Data Engineers. Mentor and coach them, keep them motivated, engaged and performing to the best of their abilities. Currently a team of 3 but looking to expand under your guidance

• Evangelize data engineering and architecture best practices, building a data culture based on the highest quality and reliability standards You’ll champion data engineering, and be the technical authority responsible for helping build an available, secure, robust, and efficient data platform

• Oversee the management of the existing SQL solution, as well as the development of a new, end-to-end, cloud-based, near-time, data platform with > 5BN new transactions a month from > 6M individual players

• Collaborate with stakeholders, including Senior Leaders and Execs, to understand how the business works and what challenges data can solve / opportunities it can realise. Maintaining and developing a suite of automated alerts, reports, dashboards and solutions providing simple, granular, actionable insights for hundreds of stakeholders across the business

• Sense-check the existing design and technology choices. Get deep into the details, make sure our plans are robust, covering all key data engineering practices and principles (ELT, orchestration etc)

• Ensure the new platform supports accurate and reliable data insight, science and products with optimal pipelines, processes, validation, enrichment, monitoring and disaster recovery, as well as managing cost, scalability, reliability, maintainability, security, and data integrity

• Enable future Data Science opportunities (e.g. the development and deployment of ML and AI models), which can be outputted elsewhere in the Data Ecosystem and where relevant, visualised for and used by business stakeholders

• Work with our scrum master to make realistic plans, balancing short-term business needs with long-term ambitions and breaking every down into manageable sprints

• Manage a robust, ongoing project and task prioritisation and delivery process across multiple stakeholders, providing transparency of what is being worked on, when with clear plans, agreed outputs, success criteria and regular reporting upwards on progress tracking

• Tell everyone what you’re doing. Tell them again. And keep updating them on progress.

Qualifications

What you will bring:

• 7+ years of data engineering experience working with large-scale, robust, scalable, end-to-end, cloud-based data platforms

• 3+ years of experience in leading data engineering practices owning, designing and implementing data pipelines to deliver data solutions and products in an autonomous environment. Includes, experience ingesting enterprise levels of data volume with strong knowledge of data engineering concepts, data integration, and ETL / ELT processes, plus knowledge of tools and systems, such as: Git, Jenkins and Terraform

• Excellent programming skills in SQL and Python (including PySpark preferably) and expertise in SQL Server and relational databases

• In-depth expertise / hands-on experience in multiple key data technologies, such as: Kafka, Airflow, SQL, NoSQL (e.g. MongoDB), Python and Spark

• Stakeholder first approach – ability to successfully engage stakeholders from different levels, understanding their needs, developing relevant proposals and bringing thought leadership to the table, based on your broader business understanding.

• Working knowledge of cloud platforms, including experience managing costs (preferably AWS), plus expertise in engineering tools such as Data Bricks very beneficial

• Experience building and leading high-performing, cross-functional teams, nurturing talent, ensuring team members are not only technically proficient but adopt ways of working that enable them to realise their ideas and potential, delivering successful outcomes, on time

• University educated, preferably with a degree, masters or PHD in a STEM field

Why would you enjoy working with us at Light & Wonder?

• Competitive benefits, an open and supportive environment as well as a modern and exciting workplace.

• The opportunity to interact with global teams on a regular basis and the possibility to switch teams and projects as you and our business continues to develop and grow.

• Exciting projects with opportunities for creating positive change to our game engineering ecosystem.

And if that is not enough; you will get to enjoy a stunning work location and flexible working whilst we provide you with the guidance and development skills you need to progress quickly and enhance your career.

#LI-Hybrid

#LI-iGaming