Lead Analytics Engineer- Audience and AI

Lead Analytics Engineer - Data, Audience and AI

- Own the semantic and BI layer of Cartology’s data platform
- Sydney office location (Surry Hills) with hybrid & flexible working environment
- Exciting opportunity to work for one of Australia's retail media pioneers

Cartology is Woolworths Group’s Retail Media business, using data-driven insights to connect brands with customers. The Data & Audience team powers this ecosystem by building and managing the data pipelines, semantic layers, and BI tools behind Cartology’s audience, campaign, and measurement products.

As the platform scales, our strategy centers on three key pillars:

- Governed Self-Service : Establishing a single, certified semantic layer so every metric is defined once and consumed consistently across dashboards, APIs, and AI applications.
- Conversational & AI Analytics: Enabling business teams to query data in natural language and receive trusted answers, backed by rigorously governed underlying models.
- Platform Standards & Scale : Applying robust engineering practices to maintain efficient pipelines, model health, and cost control as data volumes expand.

What you’ll do:

As Lead Analytics Engineer, you will own the semantic and BI layer of Cartology’s data platform, using BigQuery, dbt, Airflow, Python, and Looker (GCP) to build a scalable single source of truth. Sitting within the Data & Audience team, you will drive data modeling and governance from the warehouse layer through to Looker Explores, conversational analytics, and AI agents—starting with our finance and revenue domains. Partnering with Product and the Senior Engineering Manager, you will shape platform architecture, establish data engineering standards, mentor junior engineers, and translate complex technical systems into clear commercial outcomes.

- Semantic Layer Ownership: Manage and govern end-to-end Looker models, Explores, and metrics—starting with finance and revenue—to maintain a single source of truth across all reporting surfaces.
- AI Data Readiness: Curate and structure datasets, semantic definitions, and agent-accessible models to ensure conversational AI tools deliver trustworthy answers.
- Engineering Standards & SDLC: Establish dbt, BigQuery, and Airflow best practices around testing, CI/CD, documentation, and cost control, while embedding AI-assisted development guardrails.
- Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Lead architectural design sessions and mentor junior to mid-level engineers to lift overall engineering standards across the squad.
- Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and commercial stakeholders to turn complex business needs into scalable, governed data products.
- Conversational Analytics Rollout: Deliver plain-language query capabilities through Looker during your first 12 months, backed by a semantic layer built for accuracy.
- Semantic Consolidation & Migration: Standardize metric definitions, eliminate duplicate models, and support the seamless migration of Looker instances into Woolworths Group environments.
- Strategy & Roadmap Execution: Drive key data roadmap milestones that prepare the platform for the FY27–29 growth strategy and unlock long-term business value.

What you’ll bring:

You bring a strong semantic-layer mindset, building governed, highly accurate metric models that make self-service and AI applications truly trustworthy. Obsessed with data quality, you recognize that precision is non-negotiable when handling financial and campaign performance metrics. As an adaptable leader and clear communicator, you elevate the team through active mentorship while comfortably translating technical architecture for commercial leaders and executives. Proactive and comfortable with ambiguity, you stay ahead of fast-moving trends in BI and AI, with prior experience in retail transactional data or AdTech media logs highly regarded.

- Deep Analytics & Data Engineering: 5+ years of experience in data or analytics engineering, with production expertise in BigQuery, Snowflake, or Redshift.
- Core Technical Stack: Advanced SQL proficiency alongside strong Python skills for data pipeline processing, automation, and testing.
- Looker & Semantic Expertise: Deep hands-on LookML development, semantic model architecture, content governance, and large-scale instance administration.
- Modern Data Stack Tools: Extensive hands-on experience using dbt for modular SQL modeling and Apache Airflow for pipeline orchestration.
- Data Architecture & Standards: Strong background in Kimball dimensional modeling, version control, CI/CD, automated testing, and establishing engineering best practices.
- Technical Leadership: Proven ability to mentor engineers, guide technical delivery, and collaborate effectively with Product and business stakeholders.
- AI & Advanced Analytics (Desirable): Experience building LLM-backed analytics over semantic layers, using AI-assisted development tools, or embedding evaluation frameworks.
- Domain & Migration Skills (Desirable): Exposure to retail media or AdTech data logs, Looker instance migrations, and Terraform for infrastructure management.

What you’ll experience:

- Develop your career in an organisation that gives you the time and space to think creatively and strategically
- Feel supported and empowered by your leaders
- A truly unique opportunity to be involved in creating, shaping and leading the new retail media industry.
- A global business with endless career possibilities around every corner and across every discipline – with valuable exposure to a vast and exciting business network.
- Team discounts across our range of Woolworths Group brands you know and love and a robust rewards program that celebrates and incentivises purpose-driven work.

Endless possibilities with Woolworths Group:

We’re a proud part of the Woolworths Group – 200,000+ bright minds, passionate hearts and unique perspectives working together connected by a shared Purpose – ‘to create better experiences together for a better tomorrow.’

Here you’ll be supported and empowered to explore new ideas, make brave commitments and innovate better ways to meet the food and everyday needs of more than 24 million customers every week. Backed by a culture of genuine care, a flexible approach to work and the support to grow your career and make a meaningful impact, the possibilities for what we can achieve together are endless.

Everyone belongs at Woolworths Group:

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are key to realising our purpose of better together for a better tomorrow. We recognise the value our team’s diversity brings to our business, customers, and communities and that teams with diverse experiences and backgrounds enrich our group and are better able to innovate and solve problems. As one of the largest employers in Australia and New Zealand, we aim to create a truly inclusive workplace where everyone feels that they belong, can be their best selves, and reach their full potential.

We encourage all candidates to apply; please let us know in your application if we can support you with any adjustments in the hiring process.