Data Engineer (Team Lead)

Apertera is a leader in advancing language solutions for high-stakes content, partnering with enterprises to enhance their teams through a blend of professional expertise and Adaptive AI technology tailored by client context. With over twenty years of experience, Apertera has established itself as a trusted provider of legal, financial, and regulatory translation services, supporting more than 75% of major Canadian national law firms, all leading banks, and key securities regulators. The company is Canadian-owned and holds ISO 17100 and SOC 2 certifications, reflecting its commitment to quality and security.

Key Responsibilities

- Data Strategy & Warehousing: Define and execute the roadmap for the enterprise data warehouse, ensuring it supports high availability and performance for extensive multilingual datasets. Implement comprehensive data cataloging and governance practices to maintain data lineage and enhance discoverability across the organization. Lead the development of a user-friendly interface that enables stakeholders to query, interact with, and extract data effectively.

- Translation & Localization Domain: Manage the lifecycle of linguistic assets such as Translation Memories (TMs) and Terminology Databases. Optimize integration between the data platform and CAT tools or TMS systems, including Phrase, Trados, and MemoQ. Ensure data pipelines accommodate the complexities of translation metadata, XLIFF formats, and regional language variants.

- ML & GenAI Integration: Oversee the creation and maintenance of vector databases and semantic search indexes that support Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for automated translation and content creation. Architect data pipelines to clean, segment, and format localization data for fine-tuning or prompting Large Language Models (LLMs). Support the deployment of automated quality estimation and LLM-based evaluation metrics for translated content.

- Leadership & Mentorship: Lead a cross-functional team comprising linguists, software developers, DevOps, and localization engineers, providing technical guidance and mentorship. Serve as the key liaison between Data, Localization, and AI/ML Research teams to ensure alignment and collaboration.

Required Qualifications

- Minimum of 5 years of experience in data engineering, with at least 2 years in a leadership or senior role.
- Proficiency in SQL, Python, ETL pipelines, and cloud data platforms such as AWS S3 Data Lakes, AWS Athena, AWS Redshift, and AWS Glue.
- Strong understanding of the GenAI lifecycle, particularly data indexing for RAG using tools like Pinecone, Milvus, or Qdrant.
- Familiarity with the localization industry, including TMX, TBX standards, and CAT tool workflows.
- Experience developing and deploying production-ready internal tools or interfaces (e.g., Streamlit, React) to facilitate data accessibility.

Preferred Qualifications and Benefits

- Knowledge of embedding models and semantic similarity scoring.
- Awareness of data privacy standards such as ISO 27001 and GDPR, especially concerning personally identifiable information (PII) in linguistic datasets.

Apertera offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your well-being and professional growth. This includes health insurance covering vision, dental, and complementary therapies, as well as six personal/sick days and your birthday off to celebrate. Employees receive work-ready equipment upon request and benefit from a hybrid work model that balances in-office collaboration with remote flexibility. The company fosters a supportive and collaborative culture, providing ongoing learning opportunities, team recognition programs, and an employee referral initiative to reward talent recommendations.