At Scottish Funding Council, we’re embarking on an exciting digital transformation to redefine how we use data to drive innovation and deliver exceptional value to our customers. Central to this journey is the creation of the Azure-based data ecosystem, enabling us to unlock the full potential of our data through transformative and intelligent solutions. Our Data Engineering team plays a pivotal role in this mission. We manage the entire data lifecycle, from integrating diverse data sources and optimizing storage and processing pipelines to delivering actionable insights, while ensuring compliance with company standards and data protection regulations. As a Senior Data Engineer, you will be a technical leader within this dynamic team, driving innovation and engineering excellence. You’ll work closely with teams across the organisation, including Analytics and Cloud Engineering, to cultivate a data-driven culture and lead initiatives that turn data into a powerful tool for transformation. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of post-16 education in Scotland. By delivering innovative, data-driven solutions, you will enable institutions, and policymakers to make informed decisions, enhance learning outcomes, and create opportunities that empower students to thrive in an increasingly data-centric world. Key responsibilities 1. Lead the delivery of data products and services, leading their design and providing clear visibility of delivery progress and risks to support analytics, reporting and decision making. 2. Build and maintain data pipelines and the underlying data platform, ensuring they are production ready, reliable and efficient. 3. Apply and contribute to data architecture and engineering standards and best practices, improving consistency and quality across the team. 4. Ensure data quality, governance, security, and regulatory requirements are addressed as part of solution design, delivery, and support. 5. Work with stakeholders to understand requirements and turn them into practical data solutions. 6. Support the development of others through mentoring, peer reviews, knowledge sharing, and support. 7. Contribute to the ongoing improvement of the data platform and overall data maturity, identifying opportunities to improve how data is used across the organisation and contributing to roadmaps. Skills, qualifications and experience Essential • Proven track record of designing, developing and delivering enterprise-scale data platforms and data products in a cloud environment (ideally Microsoft Azure) • Ability to build and support reliable and scalable data products, with an understanding of performance and maintainability. • Advanced proficiency in SQL and modern data processing frameworks, coupled with strong programming skills in at least one language (Python preferred). • Expertise applying data modelling and architecture approaches, including dimensional modelling, data warehousing patterns. • Hands on experience working with CI/CD and DevOps practices for data engineering, including version control, automated testing and deployment pipelines to support continuous delivery. • Understanding and application of data governance principles, including data quality, lineage, meta data and security controls. • Experience delivering integration or migration initiatives, particularly involving legacy systems and modern data platforms. • Strong analytical capability, including data profiling, source system analysis supporting data solution design and insights. • Experience supporting or mentoring data engineers, including line management or informal coaching, promoting data engineering best practice and contributing to standards. • Demonstrated ownership of technical delivery of data solutions across the lifecycle, leading implementation from discovery, requirements gathering, through to production. • Strong stakeholder communication and engagement skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences. Desirable • Degree level education (SCQF level 9) or equivalent experience, ideally in a technical field such as Computer Science, Mathematics or Physics. • Significant exposure to Azure utilising some of the following: Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure SQL, Azure Data Factory, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Azure Data Lake, Azure DevOps and PowerBI. • Azure Data Engineer Associate certification or higher OR Azure AI Engineer Associate certification or higher. Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme Disability Confident About Disability Confident A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident .