Senior Data Engineer

Role: Senior Data Engineer

Salary: £65,000

Location: York (Hybrid)

Purpose of the Role

The purpose of this role is to design, build, and maintain a modern data platform that enables high-quality analytics and reporting. Working as part of a Data Insights function, you will ensure the organisation has robust, scalable, and secure infrastructure for data processing and integration. You will develop and optimise ETL pipelines, integrate varied data sources, and ensure data quality and reliability. Your work will support actionable insights and enable stakeholders to make informed decisions through a trusted, high-performing data ecosystem.

Accountabilities

• Develop and maintain cloud-based data pipelines and ETL processes that deliver accurate, timely, and reliable data to downstream systems.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and the wider Insights team to translate business and data requirements into efficient architecture and workflows.
• Ensure data integrity, security, and compliance across all data assets, contributing to a consistent, authoritative source of truth.
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues within the data platform, proactively identifying risks and implementing preventative solutions.
• Support the evolution of the data platform in line with changing business needs and emerging technologies.
• Drive continuous improvement across data engineering practices to enhance scalability, performance, and maintainability.
• Implement data observability and monitoring to ensure pipeline health and early issue detection.
• Manage metadata and lineage tracking to improve transparency, governance, and compliance across the data ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain scalable data models and pipelines within a cloud environment.
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines for data engineering to support rapid deployment and version control.
• Optimise ETL processes for performance and reliability, integrating both structured and unstructured data sources.
• Monitor and troubleshoot data workflows, resolving issues promptly to minimise impact to the business.
• Provide technical support for the data platform, including tuning, performance optimisation, and capacity planning.
• Act as a subject matter expert in data architecture, ETL frameworks, and data engineering best practice.
• Work closely with the Insights team to ensure data models support reporting, analytics, and data product development.
• Promote best practices in data engineering and governance to support a data-driven culture.
• Document data architecture, pipelines, and processes to support maintainability and knowledge sharing.
• Perform any other duties reasonably expected within the scope of the role.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Proven experience building and maintaining data pipelines and ETL processes within a cloud-based CI/CD environment.
• Strong proficiency in SQL and experience with both relational and NoSQL databases.
• Experience using scripting languages (e.g., Python, R) for data processing and automation.
• Ability to diagnose and resolve complex data challenges, troubleshoot systems, and implement robust, scalable solutions.
• Strong organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise workloads and deliver under pressure.
• Exceptional attention to detail and commitment to high data quality.
• Demonstrated curiosity, problem-solving capability, and a proactive approach to learning.
• General mathematical or statistical aptitude, either academically or through experience.

Desirable Skills & Experience

• Familiarity with data governance principles, data quality frameworks, and security best practices.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to lead discussions, ask insightful questions, and translate business needs into data solutions.
• Interest in building data products beyond traditional reporting and analytics.
• Experience working within Agile project methodologies.
• Experience with data governance or data quality management practices.
• Experience preparing data for LLM or AI/agent use cases.
• Experience with Azure or Microsoft Fabric data architecture.