Data Engineering Manager

As a leading industrial distributor with operations primarily in North America, Japan and the United Kingdom, We Keep The World Working® by serving more than 4.5 million customers worldwide with products delivered through innovative technology and deep customer relationships. With 2023 sales of $16.5 billion, we’re dedicated to providing value for customers, fostering an engaging culture for team members and driving strong financial results.

Our welcoming workplace enables you to learn, grow and make a difference by keeping businesses running and their people safe. As a 2024 Glassdoor Best Place to Work and a Great Place to Work-Certified™ company, we’re looking for passionate people to join our team as we continue leading the industry over our next 100 years.

Position Details:

The Merchandising and Supplier Management Analytics Enablement team oversees the creation, production, and management of key metrics, dashboards, applications, databases, and tools used to make business decisions and execute processes in the Merchandising and Supplier Management organization (MSM). One of the team's primary missions is to enable analytics and reporting by centralizing and integrating high-quality, trusted corporate data in a performant and scalable cloud analytical platform before executing on that reporting.

As Manager, Data Engineering you will direct, architect and manage multiple elements of Business Intelligence in the Merchandising and Supplier Management organization.  Your primary responsibility will be to lead, and project manage the construction of data pipelines that will move data from operational systems and other files to Grainger’s data warehouse.  You will also lead efforts to modernize legacy applications (largely in Microsoft Access) by identifying, designing and building new applications using contemporary solutions.  You will serve as a thought leader in the MSM organization on how information architecture and BI tools can fit into the broader operational environment.  You will also be closely connected to the broader Data Engineering dialogue at Grainger, where you will help other teams (and the company at large) to better capitalize on Data Engineering resources. 

You can be based in either Lake Forest, IL or downtown Chicago on a hybrid (2 days per week) basis. 

You Will:

• Plan and direct the activities of experts, analysts, external contractors, and consultants to achieve business intelligence objectives. Hire, retain, and develop talent, including providing individuals with accurate, and coaching feedback.
• Identify changes in the technology landscape that can be exploited to create a competitive advantage for Grainger and provide recommendations to leadership to inform future development.
• Offer a pragmatic vision of how reporting and analytics can have maximum impact on a diverse, multi-stakeholder department such as MSM, and connect how Data Engineering can best cultivate that impact.
• Develop relationships with MSM and technology colleagues across Grainger to manage priorities. Develop partnerships with vendors and other experts to benchmark best practices in current technology and data operations.

You Have:

• Bachelor's degree in business (or Management), Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent work experience.
• 8+ years of experience in Business Intelligence, with demonstrated experience in Data Engineering (e.g. using ETL tools, constructing data pipelines, performing data transformations, etc.) and 2+ years of experience leading individual contributors or groups of staff
• Experience applying data management tools (e.g. Python, Scala, DBT, Amazon s3, Docker, Kubernetes, Airflow, Bitbucket) and application development languages (particularly VBA, Java, or Kotlin) in a mid- to large-size organization/department.
• Experience in transitioning legacy applications supporting business process management or reporting to new enterprise solutions.

Rewards and Benefits:

With benefits starting day one, Grainger is committed to your safety, health and wellbeing. Our programs provide choice and flexibility to meet our team members' individual needs. Check out some of the rewards available to you at Grainger

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans
• Generous paid time off (PTO) and 6 company holidays per year
• Automatic 6% 401(k) company contribution each pay period
• Employee discounts, parental leave, 3:1 match on donations and tuition reimbursement
• A comprehensive set of emotional, financial, physical and social wellbeing programs

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible environment that includes both providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the application and hiring process as well as throughout the course of one’s employment.  With this in mind, should you need a reasonable accommodation during the application and selection process, please advise us so that we can provide appropriate assistance.