How to hire an etl lead

How to hire an etl lead, step by step

Here's a step-by-step etl lead hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write an etl lead job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new etl lead
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

Post an etl lead job for free, promote it for a fee

Post free

1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring an etl lead, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   An etl lead's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, etl leads from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   The following list breaks down different types of etl leads and their corresponding salaries.

   Type of ETL Lead	Description	Hourly rate
   ETL Lead	Computer systems analysts study an organization’s current computer systems and procedures and design information systems solutions to help the organization operate more efficiently and effectively. They bring business and information technology (IT) together by understanding the needs and limitations of both.	$39-64
   Data Warehouse Developer	Data Warehouse Developers are information technology (IT) professionals assigned to manage company-related information or data. They are responsible for creating the company's data warehouse, where the company's data will be stored... Show more	$34-57
   Informatica Developer	Informatica Developers are responsible for assisting in the process of maintaining all of the relevant sources of data and ensuring that all of the data is stored properly. This job involves coding, testing, and documentation of complex programs.	$32-54

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • SQL Server
   • Architecture
   • Data Warehouse
   • Unix
   • Data Quality
   • Informatica Powercenter
   • Data Analysis
   • Extract Data
   • Data Flow
   • Java
   • Hadoop
   • PL/SQL
   • BI
   • Source Systems

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage the issues raise from QA and assign work items to the team and take up critical work items.
   • Lead defect review meetings with business team leads as well as QA lead and prioritize development tasks around project milestones.
   • Involve in writing UNIX shell scripts and automate the sessions running processes and also write UNIX Perl scripts for business needs.
   • Provide technical leadership and manage all aspects of the SDLC process-requirement analysis, design, development, testing, and support/maintenance.
   • Administrate SharePoint database access; manage classified documents and applications.
   • Involve in writing TeraData scripts.

   More etl lead duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the etl lead job description is a good way to get more applicants. An etl lead salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for an etl lead in West Virginia may be lower than in Washington, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level etl lead. Additionally, an etl lead with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average etl lead salary

   $106,442yearly

   $51.17 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level etl lead salary

   $83,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 13, 2025

   Average etl lead salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$123,649	$59
   2	Louisiana	$115,418	$55
   3	Delaware	$112,209	$54
   4	New York	$108,000	$52
   5	Georgia	$107,044	$51
   6	Pennsylvania	$106,061	$51
   7	New Jersey	$106,055	$51
   8	Massachusetts	$105,996	$51
   9	Ohio	$104,547	$50
   10	Connecticut	$104,355	$50
   11	North Carolina	$103,557	$50
   12	Minnesota	$103,381	$50
   13	Missouri	$102,815	$49
   14	Virginia	$100,459	$48
   15	Florida	$99,684	$48
   16	Colorado	$99,320	$48
   17	Texas	$99,216	$48
   18	Oregon	$98,465	$47
   19	South Carolina	$96,081	$46
   20	Iowa	$92,648	$45

   Average etl lead salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	NerdWallet	$142,376	$68.45	1
   2	Citi	$125,322	$60.25	13
   3	Ticketmaster	$125,249	$60.22
   4	Ngam Advisors, L.P.	$124,817	$60.01
   5	Barclays	$124,465	$59.84	1
   6	Macy's	$123,729	$59.49
   7	SiriusXM	$123,054	$59.16	1
   8	MUFG EMEA	$119,421	$57.41
   9	JPMorgan Chase & Co.	$115,318	$55.44	18
   10	TEKsystems	$114,910	$55.25	4
   11	CoreLogic	$113,978	$54.80
   12	Populus Group	$113,773	$54.70
   13	PMA Companies	$112,476	$54.08
   14	Broadridge	$112,443	$54.06
   15	Mitchell Martin	$111,855	$53.78	1
   16	DIVERSANT	$111,608	$53.66
   17	National Veterinary Associates	$111,574	$53.64
   18	The ASCII Group	$111,440	$53.58
   19	CNET Global Solutions	$110,968	$53.35
   20	Blackapple Solutions	$110,931	$53.33	1

4. Writing an etl lead job description

   A good etl lead job description should include a few things:

   • Summary of the role
   • List of responsibilities
   • Required skills and experience

   Including a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager is also appreciated by candidates. Here's an example of an etl lead job description:

   Etl lead job description example

   Job DescriptionJob Description:
   ETL Operations Lead
   Skill : AbInitio or Informatica ( AbInitio preferred )
   Database: Teradata ( Must) , Snowflake is a Plus
   Must be willing to do Production support role – Requires weekend on-call once every 4-5 weeks and 1 day weekshit ( shift from 12 PM to 9 PM EST)
   Job Desc:
   Understand the business requirements
   Translate the business requirements into warehouse specific technical requirements
   Design and develop common processes to transform and integrate the data into data integration layer
   Participate in the business team meetings to represent the technical team and help the business team with technical feasibility. And in ensuring effective and clear communication of requirements, expectations and feedback to the team at the offshore development centers
   Support existing and enhance the processes as per new emerging requirements
   Development of Reusable generic code which will be used across Teams
   Preparation of Knowledge Transfer (KT) documents to share the knowledge to the Production support team
   Creating generic documents and upload in the SharePoint to help developers across the teams.
   Participate in touch point meetings with the delivery team to support the team in moving any code to production following Release and Change management process.
   Customizing the Proprietary frameworks Applications Development and Systems Integration Framework, Agile BI process model ) as per the business requirements .Customizing the Proprietary frameworks will help by simplifying architectural decision making , Optimizing development costs and helps in building extensible and flexible architectures.
   Participate in the business team meetings to represent the technical team and help the business team with technical feasibility. And in ensuring effective and clear communication of requirements, expectations and feedback to the team at the offshore development centers;
   Working closely with the business, IT users and end users to get a good understanding of the scope, deliverables and timelines and resolve the issues.
   Suggesting new techniques to improve the performance of the existing ETL code there-by reducing the total ETL batch window, and suggest new initiative ideas which will improve the productivity and help the business.
   Creating High level and Low Level Design documents which will translate the client's business requirements into specific systems, applications, and process designs for custom technical solutions based on the business demands and creating new business applications for the client using Ab Initio as an ETL platform to load business related data into the client's Enterprise Data-warehouse, which will be used by its users for reporting and analysis purposes. Further, the Beneficiary will expand Ab Initio development experience and internal methodologies to create reusable components and sub-graphs to improve productivity of resources.
   Delivering high performing applications using ETL experience to improve profitability of client and Reviewing the Teradata and Ab Initio code and ensure that all requirements and quality standards are met. Perform peer reviews for developed ETL codes and provide sign-offs. Perform sanity checks in Test environment to ensure the correct codes are in place for Quality Assurance team to go-ahead with testing;
   Troubleshooting and resolution of user incidents ,Performing root cause analysis (RCA) for failures and resolve them with in the Service level agreement. Analyze and provide root cause and resolution for the defects and share report with the end user and client project team. And provide development effort estimates for the enhancements.
   Participate in touch point meetings with the other application team to support the team in moving any code to production following Release and Change management process. And Making sure ZERO impact to the production system with the code movement.
   
   Preparing production implementation plans for applications. Create production deployment notes and run books for new applications;
   Provide support during Quality Assurance and User Acceptance Testing of applications;
   Documenting lessons learnt during each phase in internal templates created by client and share with client project team. Prepare coding standards checklists for developed code that is to be used by the development team. Create issue logs to document issues faced by team during development and testing of applications;
   
   Remarks : 100% remote

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right etl lead for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your etl lead job on Zippia to find and recruit etl lead candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   To successfully recruit etl leads, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   If your interviews with etl lead applicants aren't enough to make a decision, you should also consider including a test project. These are often the best, most straightforward, and least bias-prone ways of determining who will likely succeed in the role. If you don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:

   • TestDome
   • CodeSignal
   • Testlify
   • BarRaiser
   • Coderbyte

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new etl lead

   Once you've found the etl lead candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new etl lead first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

   Sign up to download full list

   Sign up

How much does it cost to hire an etl lead?