Executive Talent, Confidentially

The private market for verified leaders earning $150K+. Stay visible to the right companies without signaling the market. Every candidate personally reviewed by Mike Torchinsky. You decide who gets your contact details.

How It Works

Upload your CV. Our AI creates an anonymous profile card. Mike Torchinsky personally reviews and endorses your profile. We promote anonymized profiles to a network of 70,000+ executives. Companies request introductions. You decide who gets your details.

Why TOPHEADS

Anonymous by default. Personal curation by an executive recruiter with 25+ years of experience. No placement commissions. Your data is protected and your identity stays private until you choose to share it.

For Candidates

Whether you are actively looking or simply want to be findable to the right opportunities, TOPHEADS is the private market for senior executives. Our two tiers — TOPHEADS ($150K-$199K) and Select ($200K+) — offer different levels of personal endorsement and visibility.

For Companies

Access pre-vetted senior executive candidates. During Early Access (until Fall 2026), full platform access is free for hiring companies. Send introduction requests, search by industry and region, and find candidates who match your specific needs.

Notes

Short-form intelligence and observations on executive search, leadership hiring, and the private talent market. Written by Mike Torchinsky.

Field Notes

On-the-ground dispatches from executive search — real patterns, real market signals, and unfiltered observations from active searches across industries and geographies.

On The Record

Candid conversations with senior executives and hiring leaders. What they really look for, how they think about talent, and what it takes to land at the top.

Career Quiz

Find out which executive tier you belong in. Answer a few questions about your role, compensation, and career goals to see whether TOPHEADS or Select is the right fit for you.

About Mike Torchinsky

Mike Torchinsky is an executive search consultant with 25+ years of experience in placing senior leadership across financial services, technology, and professional services. He has built a network of 70,000+ executives on LinkedIn and personally vets every candidate on the TOPHEADS platform.

Head of Data Engineering: skills & capabilities the market requires

Based on 79 real Head of Data Engineering job postings, here is what companies actually require for this role today — the capabilities that define it, the hard skills named most often, the scope expected, typical experience and pay. The market leans hardest on Technical Depth (89%) and Strategic Leadership (77%).

Core capabilities for a Head of Data Engineering

Technical Depth89%

Strategic Leadership77%

Data & Analytics61%

Go-to-Market & Sales56%

People Leadership56%

Risk, Security & Compliance51%

Cross-functional Leadership47%

Share of Head of Data Engineering postings that call for each capability.

Most-required hard skills for a Head of Data Engineering

Data EngineeringSqlData GovernancePythonSnowflakeData ModelingData Pipeline Development

Leadership & soft skills

Cross-Functional CollaborationStrategic ThinkingLeadershipCommunication

Scope, experience & pay

Head of Data Engineering roles expect deal / M&A experience in 0% of postings, IPO or capital-markets experience in 5%, and transformation experience in 39%. Typical stated experience is around 10 years. The pay signal from postings (base, where stated) runs $174K–$193K.

Full pay benchmark in Comp Check →

For members

How do you measure up as a Head of Data Engineering?

This is the bar. Join TOPHEADS to see your own profile mirrored against it — your real strengths and the gaps for the role you want.

Join TOPHEADS →

Percentages are the share of postings that mention a signal, not a measure of importance. Baseline pilot. Quarter-over-quarter movement begins from the next collection. Levels covered: Director and above. Mid-level is not in this data. Real executive job postings, parsed for required skills, scope, credentials and compensation.