Forward Deployed Data Engineer @ Manchester United

Manchester United are hiring a Forward Deployed Data Engineer on a 12 month fixed term contract based at Carrington and while my usual rule is not to give too much insight into clubs where I have, ahem, more knowledge than most, I think this is an interesting role to discuss.

The term "forward deployed" basically means you're not supposed to be someone who sits at a desk writing code and solving problems given to you. Instead you embed directly with teams, discover the problems at the source and build practical solutions on the spot. I've come across this kind of term in software and consulting but usually it's more of a software engineering role - building production code to solve problems right where the problems are being experienced. This on the other hand is specifically framed as a data role in title, though a lot of the JD reads more like a software engineer if I am honest. But then again the technical requirements are substantial and data-specific. Production grade data pipelines, Python and SQL, Azure and Databricks, orchestration, data modelling and lakehouse architecture. So technically this is a proper data engineering role with a high bar.

Also this isn't framed as a football role strongly. It does refer to football operations but also commercial, fan and corporate functions. It's not clear how much of this job would sit within football data specifically for example versus those other parts of the business, those "far from the pitch" as I would say. Based at Carrington does suggest a football function of course but the scope is written much broader than that.

So, in summary, I'm intrigued! Mainly about how this would actually work in practice. Is the plan for the data engineer to deliver high quality data directly to people who can then build their own tools? That could make sense to me, but its not quite written that way. And splitting time across two very different sides of a business is not straightforward. And why only 12 months? And is this a real role - consultancies are very adept at creating work that sounds good in the short term but doesn't deliver long-lasting solutions? Exactly the opposite of what this role promises in "avoiding unnecessary complexity and tooling sprawl."

But you would get to work with a brilliant data team so it will certainly be well supported ...

Closing date is the 14th of July.