[Hiring] Director and Practice Lead, Data Engineering @TELUS Digital

Role Description

The Director & Practice Lead, Data Engineering will define and own the Data Engineering Practice along with its market positioning, P&L, talent, and the quality of work we deliver for clients. This role is for someone who has led data and AI practices before, understands how to turn messy enterprise data estates into strategic assets, and earns trust with C-suite executives through genuine expertise. You will shape how we help clients move from data ambition to durable, AI-ready infrastructure.

This role will have four core anchor responsibilities:

• Strategy: Set the practice vision and align Data & AI capabilities to where enterprise demand is heading.
• P&L: Own revenue targets, margin, and growth while being accountable for the practice's full commercial performance.
• Talent & Culture: Build a practice where data-driven thinking, innovation, and engineering rigour are the baseline.
• Client Impact: Act as a trusted advisor to enterprise CxOs navigating data strategy, AI adoption, and governance.

Responsibilities include:

• Define the multi-year vision for the Data Engineering Practice, ensuring our technical capabilities are ahead of the curve for enterprise demand for Data & AI transformation.
• Own the full P&L, including pipeline, pricing, delivery margin, and revenue growth, while reporting directly to executive leadership with clear commercial accountability.
• Build and sustain senior relationships with Google Cloud partner teams and client executives to generate meaningful deal flow and expand strategic accounts.
• Lead the practice's position on ethical AI and data democratisation while making principled, evidence-based bets on where advanced analytics and AI are creating real enterprise value.
• Drive investment in reusable IP, data accelerators, and delivery assets that improve consistency, reduce time-to-value, and protect margins at scale.
• Serve as a strategic advisor to client C-suite executives, helping them define data strategy, navigate AI adoption, and build the organisational capabilities to sustain it.
• Set the standard for engineering and analytical excellence across the practice by hiring well, developing talent deliberately, and building teams that clients trust and return to.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in data or AI consulting, including at least 3–5 years in a practice leadership or executive role, not just senior delivery or individual contribution.
• Proven P&L ownership: Direct experience managing revenue, margin, and growth targets in a consulting or professional services context.
• Data and AI ecosystem depth: Strong command of modern data architecture, AI, and ML trends, cloud-native data platforms, and enterprise data governance.
• Executive communication: Able to advise, challenge, and build lasting trust with C-suite stakeholders on complex, ambiguous problems, not just present to them.
• Business Development track record: Experience generating pipeline and closing complex, multi-stakeholder engagements, not just managing delivery once work is sold.
• Talent leadership: Has hired, grown, and retained senior data engineering and consulting talent in a practice or delivery organisation.

Company Description

Welcome to TELUS Digital — where innovation drives impact at a global scale. As an award-winning digital agency and the digital division of TELUS, one of Canada’s largest telecommunications providers, we design and deliver transformative customer experiences through cutting-edge technology, agile thinking, and a people-first culture.

With a global team across North America, South America, Central America, Europe, Africa, and APAC, we offer end-to-end expertise across:

• Digital Product Strategy & Innovation
• Digital Marketing Services
• Web & Mobile App Development
• Data & AI
• Cloud Engineering
• Enterprise Technology Modernization

From mobile apps and websites to voice UI, chatbots, AI, customer service, and in-store solutions, TELUS Digital enables seamless, trusted, and digitally powered experiences that meet customers wherever they are — all backed by the secure infrastructure and scale of our multi-billion-dollar parent company.