About Nova Entertainment
NOVA Entertainment is Australia’s fastest growing audio entertainment business, creating experiences loved and shared by audiences. NOVA Entertainment owns and operates the Nova Network, the most listened to metro network in Australia, which includes Nova 96.9 Sydney, Nova 100 Melbourne, Nova 106.9 Brisbane, Nova 93.7 Perth and Nova 919 Adelaide, in addition to Australia’s premium intimate live music brand, Nova’s Red Room.
NOVA Entertainment also owns and operates Australia’s market leading feel-good station, smoothfm in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, the talk station FIVEaa in Adelaide, Star 104.5 on the NSW Central Coast and the DAB+ stations - smoothfm, smooth Relax, smooth 80s, smooth Vintage, Nova Throw Backs, Nova 90s, Nova Noughties and Coles Radio.
The company’s broadcast offering is complemented by a range of on-demand assets across digital, social, mobile, including the NOVA Entertainment Podcast Network, which brings together the largest stable of accessible talent in the country to create a suite of quality podcast content that connects audiences and brands.
Our values are integral to who we are. We believe in creating and working in an environment that supports Unwavering Unity, Relentless Curiosity and Radical Empathy.
About the Role
We are seeking an experienced and passionate Senior Data Engineer to lead the development and implementation of NOVA’s data strategy. As part of the Digital team, this role will play a pivotal part in designing, building and enabling a modern data architecture that empowers data driven decision-making for the listener, business and the advertiser. This is an exciting opportunity to own and drive end-to-end data build and enablement initiatives, from managing the Data Lakehouse to leading strategic projects across data governance, customer data, automation and data commercialisation. If you have a proven track record in building robust data architecture, scalable data solutions, enabling data-driven capabilities to inform decision-making, we’d love to hear from you.
Key pillars of responsibility include:
- Own implementation of NOVA’s data strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives and enabling a data-first culture.
- Spearhead initiatives to integrate and leverage enterprise and first-party data for strategic decision-making and business growth.
- Ensure that our data ecosystem architecture is robust, that is it build for future growth and enables opportunities to innovate.
- Design, build, and optimise scalable data pipelines and solutions to support the data needs of the business.
- Manage data integrations across a diverse range of sources, ensuring efficient extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL/ELT) processes.
- Implementation of frameworks to govern how we store, manage and utilise data to service business needs.
- Oversee the architecture, development, and maintenance of NOVA’s Data Lakehouse, enabling real-time and batch processing capabilities.
- Collaborate with Data Lead and Functional director to build business cases and prototypes for innovating within the data ecosystem.
- Participate in the customer data governance forum, providing input from a technical operations perspective.
- Manage the end-to-end technical execution of data partnerships, including but not limited to data clean rooms and integration.
- Automate manual workflows, improve data delivery processes, and optimise system scalability to meet future business needs.
- Stay at the forefront of emerging technologies, introducing innovative solutions for forecasting and machine learning model integrations.
- Ensure adherence to best practices in data architecture, system design, and technical governance.
- Act as a technical authority for resolving escalations, including pipeline failures and system performance issues.
About you
We are looking for an experienced Data Engineer with a hands-on approach and a strategic mindset. You thrive in tackling challenges, solving complex problems, and building systems that scale with the business.
Background
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, engineering, information technology, or a related field.
- 5+ years of professional experience as a Data Engineer, with a proven track record of driving large-scale data initiatives.
Technical Expertise
- Advanced proficiency in programming languages such as Python, SQL, R and Scala.
- Expertise in designing scalable and efficient data architectures, including dimensional modelling, data vaults, and real-time processing systems to support diverse business needs.
- Hands-on experience with modern data Lakehouse and warehouse solutions such as Databricks (preferred), Snowflake, Redshift, or BigQuery.
- Deep understanding of AWS, Azure or GCP, including their services such as S3, EC2, Lambda.
- Knowledge of data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, Australia Privacy Act) and their implications for data architecture and processing.
- Experience with data enrichment flows and clean room solutions.
- Ability to build pipelines to deploy ML models into production using tools like MLflow. Familiarity with MLOps frameworks.
- Proficient with CI/CD tools such as GitHub.
Soft Skills
- Strategic Mindset: You’re not just focused on the technical tasks but are also able to think big picture, aligning data infrastructure with broader business objectives and long-term strategies.
- Leadership: You foster collaboration across teams, and champion data-driven decision-making across the organization.
- Problem Solver: Thrives on solving complex challenges, turning ambiguity into clarity, and proactively identifying opportunities for process and infrastructure improvements.
- Exceptional Communication: Able to translate complex technical concepts into clear, concise explanations tailored to various audiences, from technical peers to business stakeholders.
- Collaboration: Works seamlessly across cross-functional teams, building trust and strong partnerships with stakeholders from Product, Analytics, Marketing, and Commercial teams.
- Curiosity & Drive: Endlessly curious about exploring new tools, techniques, and methodologies to keep the organization at the cutting edge of data technology.
- Resilience & Adaptability: Comfortable navigating a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities, demonstrating grace under pressure and the ability to adapt quickly to new challenges.
Why Join Us?
At NOVA, you’ll have the opportunity to make a significant impact in shaping the data landscape of a leading entertainment business. Join a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning, and help us achieve our vision of becoming Australia’s leading digital audio destination. Other benefits include:
- This is a full-time position, Sydney-based. Depending on the needs of the business we are able to explore flexible work options where appropriate.
- Access to Learning and Development programs & internal opportunities.
- Access to health and wellbeing initiatives (Nova’s Life+ & Employee Assistance Program, mental health training programs).
- Amazing employee benefits from a huge variety of partners nationally.
- Frequent staff lunches & survey celebrations.
Nova Entertainment Diversity & Inclusion Commitment:
The Aim: Promote a diverse workforce that invites people of all backgrounds to work and grow with us in their own unique way.
How we do it:
- Providing a work environment that embraces and values Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
- Supporting candidates that may have diverse needs by providing reasonable adjustments ensuring each candidate can put their best efforts into their application.
- By being allies of the LGBTIQA+ community and members of the Welcome Here initiative.
- Best utilising our membership and guidance of the Diversity Council of Australia.
What’s next?
- If you are successfully to be moved on to the next stage, we will be in contact in the next 5-10 days.
- Our interview process will involve a telephone interview initially followed by up to 2 face-to-face interviews.
- Police Checks may be required.
- Please reach out during the application process if you think you may require any considerations for the recruitment process.
- No Agencies
