Engagement Lead — Data & AI

Does This Sound Like You?
You're the rare hybrid: someone who can sit across from a CFO at 9am, walk a leadership team through a multi-year data strategy at 11am, then jump on a call with engineers at 2pm and actually understand what they're saying. You speak business and tech — and you know how to translate between the two without anything getting lost.
You've seen enough engagements to know that strategy decks don't deliver value on their own. The real work is in the messy middle: shaping a roadmap that's actually executable, holding a delivery team to a plan, and managing stakeholders who all want different things. You're equally comfortable challenging an architecture choice and rewriting a steering committee deck the night before.
You're not just looking for your next project. You're looking for a long-term, high-trust client engagement where you can become the person they call when something matters.

The Xebia Data Division
We are one of the divisions of Xebia Netherlands, renowned for our expertise in building strong Data & AI practices. We help organizations build future-proof Data & AI capabilities that create value for both their business and their customers — through impactful client work, training teams, shaping standards, and raising the bar for how Data & AI is practiced.
You'll work alongside some of the sharpest data professionals in Europe — people who are technically brilliant and generous with their knowledge. We enjoy the benefits of being part of a large organization while keeping the energetic atmosphere of a scale-up.

What You'll Be Doing as an Engagement Lead
You'll lead a high-profile, long-running engagement at one of our strategic clients — a complex environment where data and AI are central to where the business is going. You'll be the senior face of Xebia on the ground: shaping the roadmap, leading delivery, and acting as the trusted advisor to the client's leadership team.

Concretely, you'll be:

• Owning the client relationship at executive and C-suite level — leading steering committees, framing strategic choices, and being the person leadership turns to when the data agenda needs a clear voice

• Shaping the data & AI strategy alongside the client — translating ambition into a roadmap that's grounded in what's actually buildable, on what timeline, and at what cost

• Leading delivery of the engagement — running the program, managing scope and budget, coordinating across our consultants and the client's teams, and making sure commitments turn into outcomes

• Staying close to the technology — particularly around the Microsoft data stack (Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Synapse) — so that your strategic guidance is anchored in technical reality, not wishful thinking

• Working with our delivery practice to staff the engagement well, manage risk, and keep project health green

• Representing Xebia Data in the wider account — spotting opportunities, shaping new workstreams, and growing the partnership over time

This is a senior, client-facing role with real ownership. You'll have the backing of the full Xebia Data division — our consultants, architects, and trainers — and the autonomy to run the engagement the way it needs to be run.

What we're looking for

• 5–8 years in consulting, data, or strategy roles — with meaningful time spent leading client engagements

• Proven C-suite presence: you've led conversations with CIOs, CDOs, CFOs, and leadership teams — and they've taken your advice

• Strong project & program management chops: scope, budget, risk, stakeholders, the lot

• Solid grounding in data & AI — you understand the modern data stack well enough to guide architectural conversations and call out trade-offs. Hands-on experience with the Microsoft / Azure ecosystem (especially Microsoft Fabric) is a strong plus, but adjacent backgrounds (Databricks, Snowflake, GCP, AWS) work too if you're willing to ramp on Fabric

• Strategic thinking — you can move between the 30,000-foot view and the next-sprint view without dropping either

• Excellent English communication; Dutch is a strong plus given the client base

• Eligible to work in the Netherlands

THIS IS YOUR DREAM JOB IF…

✅ You're ready to be the senior person in the room — and you've got the experience to back it up

✅ You enjoy long-term client relationships where you're genuinely embedded

✅ You can hold both the strategy and the delivery accountable

✅ You're technical enough to call BS on a bad architecture choice

✅ You want the backing of a strong consultancy without losing your autonomy

THIS IS NOT YOUR DREAM JOB IF…

❌ You want a pure architect role with no client politics

❌ You prefer short, transactional projects with quick handoffs

❌ You're not comfortable owning a difficult steering committee or a hard budget conversation

❌ You want to specialize narrowly — this role rewards range

Xebia Data offers you great benefits too, of course!

We work in a hybrid model – at client sites, in our own office in Amsterdam Oostenburg, and from home. While flexibility is important, coming to the office is essential for building the close-knit team we are. We value team cohesion, knowledge and personal development, innovation, and fun. We strive for authority in everything we do. At most companies, you'll see similar statements, but at Xebia Data, we back this up with concrete benefits:

Our core values are people first, quality without compromise, knowledge sharing, and customer intimacy. At Xebia Data, you will find like-minded colleagues who are at the forefront of their field and have the courage to go off the beaten track; they are the people who make organizations move.

Sounds interesting? Let’s talk.