Data Engineer - RDF / SparQL
Senior Data Engineer (Contract – Outside IR35)
UK-Based | Remote / Hybrid | Defence, Government & High-Assurance Environments
Contract | Outside IR35
The Opportunity
Are you a Senior Data Engineer who thrives in high-assurance, mission-critical environments?
This is a chance to shape secure, resilient data platforms that sit at the heart of national defence, government, and regulated-sector programmes.
You'll engineer robust data pipelines, cross-domain integrations, and secure-by-design platforms that enable controlled data sharing across complex multi-classification ecosystems.
If you're motivated by meaningful impact, technical depth, and delivering quality at scale—this contract is for you.
What You'll Be Doing
- Designing and building secure, scalable data pipelines and integration services
- Engineering data solutions for cross-domain and multi‐classification environments
- Writing production-grade Python, plus Java/Scala where needed
- Modelling complex datasets to enable controlled, interoperable data access
- Integrating data from diverse and sometimes legacy operational systems
- Implementing fine-grained access controls, classification rules & governance frameworks
- Deploying data services across cloud, hybrid, and on‐prem environments
- Working closely with architects, security engineers, and delivery teams
- Contributing to design reviews, technical assurance, and architectural decisions
- Ensuring platforms are resilient, observable, and high-performing
- Producing high-quality technical docs for a range of stakeholders
What You'll Bring
Core Technical Skills
- Strong commercial experience as a Senior Data Engineer
- Excellent Python engineering capability
- Commercial Java and/or Scala
- Advanced SQL + strong data modelling
- Expertise in large-scale ETL/ELT pipelines
- Solid understanding of distributed systems
- Experience across AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, containerisation & orchestration
- Familiarity with CI/CD and modern DevOps practices
Security, Defence & Government Experience
- Experience building data solutions in secure/regulated environments
- Understanding of zero-trust architecture & least-privilege models
- Implementing data classification & policy-driven governance
- Working with systems subject to formal assurance, audit & compliance
- Comfortable handling sensitive or protected information
Nice to Have
- Knowledge of semantic data, knowledge graphs or graph DBs
- Experience with RDF, SPARQL, ontologies
- Familiarity with cross-domain data flow patterns
- Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
- Exposure to open-source data frameworks
The Ideal Contractor
- Operates independently with minimal oversight
- Pragmatic, delivery-driven, and quality-focused
- Excellent communication across technical & non-technical stakeholders
- Strong analytical and problem-solving approach
- Comfortable within structured delivery frameworks
Security Clearance
Candidates must be eligible for UK Security Clearance.
Some roles may require undergoing formal vetting during engagement.
Ready to Make an Impact?
If you're a Senior Data Engineer who wants to work on meaningful, technically challenging projects that genuinely matter, this contract offers real depth, autonomy, and high-level engineering work.
If you want, I can also create:
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