Senior Growth Systems Engineer

Senior Growth Systems Engineer

Hoofddorp / Hybrid / Fulltime

Build the activation layer behind our growth stack

Are you at your best where data, activation and systems come together? Do you know how to turn warehouse data into usable audiences, reliable activation flows and scalable growth tooling? And do you enjoy working at the intersection of CDP, identity, consent and AI assisted workflows?

At HeadFirst Group, we are building a new Growth Tech function from scratch inside the Product organisation. We are looking for a Senior Growth Systems Engineer to own the activation layer behind that ambition. This is not a campaign marketing role or a traditional marketing automation role. It is a technical activation role focused on audience orchestration, identity resolution, reverse ETL and the systems that make growth execution possible across our marketplaces and 20+ brands.

The role

As Senior Growth Systems Engineer, you will build and improve the activation layer of our Growth Tech ecosystem. You will work on audience activation from Databricks into downstream channels, identity resolution across platforms, event and consent flows, and the QA of AI generated activation outputs.

You will be the first dedicated hire in this team and report to the Director Growth Tech, who owns the broader strategy, architecture and roadmap. You will own the activation layer day to day and work closely with Product, Data Engineering, Commercial and Marketing teams.

Your impact

In this role, you will help build the foundation for more scalable and data driven growth across HeadFirst Group. That includes:

• Building and managing audience activation flows from Databricks into Hightouch and connected platforms

• Translating business use cases into scalable audience logic, traits and sync structures

• Improving identity resolution across Striive, ProUnity and our wider brand portfolio

• Helping shape event taxonomy, consent flows and data readiness for activation

• Reviewing and improving AI generated audience drafts, campaign inputs and reporting outputs

• Increasing the speed, quality and reliability of activation across regions and brands

• What you bring

We are looking for someone with hands-on experience in technical activation, MarTech, CDP, growth systems or data activation environments. You likely recognise yourself in most of the points below:

• You have built or managed reverse ETL or warehouse-to-channel activation flows in production, for example with Hightouch, Census or a similar setup

• You are comfortable working with SQL and can debug audience definitions and data logic yourself

• You understand audiences, traits, events and sync logic at a system level

• You have experience with identity resolution, profile stitching or customer matching logic

• You understand how consent should flow from CMP to warehouse to activation

• You are comfortable working with AI tools and can make sound judgement calls on the quality of AI generated outputs

Experience with Databricks, dbt, Hightouch, OneTrust or multi-brand activation environments is a strong plus.

What this role is not

To avoid confusion, this role is not aimed at campaign managers, generalist digital marketers or traditional marketing automation specialists focused mainly on HubSpot or Marketo administration.

What we offer

• A base salary between €85,000 and €115,000, depending on experience

• 15% performance bonus

• Full-time permanent contract

• 27 vacation days with the option to buy more

• 8.33% holiday allowance and premium-free pension

• Hybrid working and flexible hours

• Modern office in Hoofddorp

• Access to HeadFirst Academy and internal learning opportunities

The opportunity to be the first dedicated activation hire in a strategically important new function

Interested?

Apply with your CV and a short note. We are particularly interested in concrete examples of activation work you have shipped, such as a reverse ETL flow, an audience activation setup, an identity resolution decision or a case where you improved AI generated output before it reached production.

Requirements

How you operate

• You have hands-on experience in Growth Systems, MarTech, CDP, data activation or a similar technical activation environment

• You have built or managed reverse ETL or warehouse-to-channel activation flows in production, for example with Hightouch, Census or a comparable setup

• You are comfortable with SQL and can debug audience definitions, joins and activation logic yourself

• You understand audiences, traits, events and sync logic at a system level rather than only from a campaign execution perspective

• You have experience with identity resolution, profile stitching or customer matching logic and understand the trade-offs involved

• You understand how consent and event data should flow from CMP to warehouse to activation

• You are comfortable working with AI assisted workflows and can make sound judgement calls on the quality of AI generated outputs

Helps but not required

• Reverse-ETL plus warehouse-native CDP combination in production.

• Multi-brand or multi-market activation experience.

• Headless CMS experience in production.

• Experience working alongside AI agents in production — not just prompting Claude.

• Dutch — most of the team operates in Dutch. Nice to have, not a requirement.

Not what we're looking for

• A HubSpot or Marketo admin who wants to expand into MarTech. The mental model doesn't transfer.

• A "marketing automation specialist" whose deepest tool is a marketing-cloud UI.

• Someone who treats AI agents as competition, or as a magic 10× button. Both lead to the same bad outcome.

• A vendor-demo enthusiast — the major architecture decisions are already made.

• A campaign manager — that's a different role.

• Anyone who needs a 12-vendor RFI before they can make a call.

• Anyone who needs to be told what good looks like.