About the Role
The Principal Data Engineer is a senior technical leader responsible for driving engineering strategy, architecture, and best practices across product domain squads within our growing Data and Platform Engineering team.
Key Responsibilities
- Technical leadership across product domains
- Architecture and design of the data platform and data mesh
- Mentorship and capability building for data engineers
- Cross‑domain interoperability and governance/compliance enablement
- Drive innovation and strategic influence within the engineering organisation
- Ensure robust, performant, and compliant design for data ingestion, quality, transformation, security, batch management, monitoring, alerting, and cost control on Google Cloud Platform
- Identify opportunities for automation and process improvement, set coding standards, implement data integrity and quality checks, optimise queries, and facilitate engineering collaboration
- Work closely with the Principal Data Platform Engineer and Data Domain Architect to optimise data platform and pipeline design
Qualifications & Experience
- Extensive cloud data engineering background with deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud platforms, and modern data stacks
- Strong understanding of domain‑driven design, data mesh, and product thinking
- Excellent communicator and collaborator across technical teams
- Hands‑on experience with Google Cloud Platform services such as BigQuery, Dataflow, Data Fusion, Data Stream, Cloud Functions, Dataproc, Airflow/Composer
- Proven track record in a Lead or Principal Engineer role with responsibility for directing other data engineers through design, build and deployment of complex data solutions
- Experience driving CI/CD adoption and full development lifecycle of data products
- Strong problem‑solving skills, rigorous approach to code checks and peer reviews, with a high standard of quality in the team
- Excellent SQL and Python proficiency; knowledge of query optimisation and fine‑tuning of complex queries
- Understanding of data governance, data dictionaries, MDM, lineage, legislation and handling of PII
- Experience with Agile/Scrum and SDLC
Benefits
- Competitive salary with annual review
- Matched pension contributions up to 7%
- 35 days annual holiday with option to buy or sell leave
- Healthcare cashback plan up to £500 per year
- 2% bonus scheme for all colleagues
- Training and development opportunities
- Extra perks: discounts on shops, cinemas and more
Equal Opportunity
We do not discriminate based on protected attributes and are committed to creating inclusive and thriving communities for both our customers and employees. We offer a guaranteed interview to candidates who are disabled, neurodiverse, or have served in the Armed Forces, provided they meet the essential criteria.
Flexibility and Reasonable Adjustments
We are open to discussing reduced hours, flexible start and finish times, or compressed hours. If you require reasonable adjustments to support your application or interview experience, please let us know.
