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About the job

Brief Description:

We are seeking a DataOps Lead to own and advance the operational reliability, quality, and scalability of our cloud-based data platforms . This role sits at the intersection of data engineering, platform operations, and reliability , supporting critical data pipelines that power analytics, reporting, and operational decision-making across oilfield and energy operations.

The DataOps Lead will be responsible for ensuring that data is available, accurate, timely, and trustworthy , while leading operational best practices across ingestion, processing, and delivery systems running primarily on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) .

This is a hands-on technical leadership role with strong expectations for ownership, cross-team collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Detailed Description:

Data Platform Operations

Own the day-to-day operational health of cloud-based data pipelines and platforms

Ensure high data availability, freshness, accuracy, and completeness

Lead operational support for batch and streaming data workloads

Data Reliability & Quality

Define and manage data SLAs, SLOs, and reliability metrics

Implement and maintain data quality checks, validations, and monitoring

Design processes for backfills, reprocessing, and failure recovery

Cloud & Infrastructure

Operate and optimize GCP-based data services, including BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Pub/Sub, and GKE

Partner with platform and SRE teams on scalability, performance, and cost optimization

Manage data infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)

Automation & Tooling

Build and maintain Python-based automation for data operations and monitoring

Improve reliability and repeatability through standardized tooling and workflows

Support and enhance data orchestration platforms (e.g., Airflow / Cloud Composer)

Incident Response & Operational Excellence

Lead response to data incidents, including triage, mitigation, and root cause analysis

Drive post-incident reviews and track corrective actions

Create and maintain runbooks, operational documentation, and playbooks

CI/CD & Governance

Implement CI/CD best practices for data pipelines

Promote testing, version control, and deployment standards across data workflows

Ensure data platforms align with security, governance, and access control requirements

Leadership & Collaboration

Act as a technical leader within the DataOps function

Partner closely with:

Data engineering teams

SRE / platform engineering

Analytics and business stakeholders

Mentor engineers and help raise the operational maturity of the data organization

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

7+ years experience in Data Engineering, DataOps, or Data Platform Operations

3+ years experience operating cloud-based data platforms in production

Strong hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform , including:

GCP : GKE, Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, Pub/Sub (or equivalents)

Cloud Monitoring & Logging

BigQuery

Dataflow

Datastream

IAM and networking

Composer/AIrflow

Kubernetes: deployment, scaling, reliability patterns

Observability : GCP Cloud Monitoring, Logging

Strong proficiency in Python for data pipelines, automation, and operational tooling

Experience with data orchestration frameworks (Airflow preferred)

Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)

Experience with Azure Devops

Proven experience leading data incident response and operational improvements

Strong SQL skills for data analysis and troubleshooting

Minimum Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field.

7+ years experience in Data Engineering, DataOps, or Data Platform Operations

3+ years leading or owning production data platforms in a cloud environment

Demonstrated technical leadership of data operations initiatives or teams

Ability to understand and speak English at a level of proficiency allowing employee to issue, receive and respond to both safety and operations-related directions in English

Preferred Qualifications:

Oil and Gas Industry knowledge

Technology/Digital Industry knowledge

#NexTierJob

The Evolving Oil Field Demands Evolving Service Providers

NexTier is a leading provider of integrated completions that employs sustainable practices and equipment to support our customers’ ESG goals while accelerating production in the most demanding US land basins.

Patterson-UTI is committed to a workplace free from discrimination and harassment, offering equal employment opportunities to all individuals regardless of personal characteristics protected by law. Employees are encouraged to report any concerns through multiple channels.