Principal Data Engineer
Principal Data Engineer
Lead the design and delivery of a modern cloud-based data platform, driving engineering standards, architecture, and innovation across a growing data function.
The Opportunity
This is a senior technical leadership role responsible for shaping data engineering strategy, architecture, and best practices across multiple product domains. Working within a modern cloud environment and Data Mesh architecture, you will drive the development of scalable, secure, and high-performing data solutions while mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide technical leadership across data engineering teams and product domains.
- Define and implement data platform architecture, standards, and best practices.
- Design and optimise data ingestion, transformation, quality, security, monitoring, and governance processes.
- Lead the development of Data Mesh principles, data models, and semantic data layers.
- Drive automation, CI/CD adoption, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Mentor and coach data engineers, promoting engineering excellence.
- Ensure cross-domain interoperability, scalability, and compliance.
- Collaborate with architects, platform engineers, and business stakeholders to deliver robust data solutions.
About You
- Extensive experience in cloud-based data engineering and distributed systems.
- Strong knowledge of Data Mesh, domain-driven design, and data product thinking.
- Proven ability to lead teams and deliver complex data engineering initiatives.
- Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
- Passionate about engineering quality, innovation, and mentoring others.
Essential Skills & Experience
- 10+ years' experience in Data Engineering.
- Experience in a Lead or Principal Data Engineering role.
- Strong cloud data platform expertise, including Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
- Hands-on experience with BigQuery, Dataflow, Datastream, Data Fusion, Cloud Functions, Dataproc, and Airflow/Composer.
- Advanced SQL and Python skills.
- Expertise in data lakes, data warehouses, and modern data architectures.
- Strong understanding of data governance, lineage, MDM, data privacy, and PII handling.
- Experience optimising complex queries and large-scale data processing.
- Proven mentoring, coaching, and leadership capability.
- Experience working within Agile/Scrum environments and across the full software development lifecycle.
This is an excellent opportunity for a senior data engineering leader to play a key role in the evolution of a modern cloud data platform, influencing architectural decisions and helping shape the future of a data-driven organisation.
Sponsorship is not available - applicants must have full right to work in the UK