Principal Data Engineer (14 Month FTC)
Summary
Lead the design and operation of secure, scalable data pipelines and platforms that power analytics and decision-making across a government-linked organization.
Principal Data Engineer (14 Month FTC)
As part of the Operations Delivery Intelligence (ODI) directorate, you will act as a technical leader for data engineering across the organisation, enabling secure, scalable and high‑performing data platforms that underpin data products and decision‑making across the company.
What you’ll do:
- Act as a technical leader for data engineering best practice across delivery teams
- Lead the design, build, test and deployment of secure and scalable data pipelines
- Maintain and operate data products, ensuring availability, performance and resilience through monitoring and incident management
- Provide assurance on code quality and automation used to manage data flows
- Lead service reviews, health checks and root cause analysis to improve reliability and reduce operational overhead
- Set and embed standards for data processing documentation and version control
- Support and coach engineers on engineering patterns, coding standards and automated testing
- Lead agile ceremonies, delivery planning and retrospectives to support continuous improvement
- Define and improve developer experience by working with data product teams to resolve data processing issues
- Line manage Senior Data Engineers and support their development
- Participate in an on‑call rota to support live data products
What you’ll bring:
- Strong hands‑on technical leadership in data engineering
- Deep understanding of cloud‑based data ingestion, processing and storage techniques
- Expert knowledge of data processing, testing and monitoring practices
- Strong understanding of enterprise data management, optimisation and security at scale
- Confidence influencing technical direction and engineering standards
- Strong stakeholder engagement skills across business and technical teams
- Ability to break down complex problems and work effectively in ambiguous environments
- Delivery‑focused, accountable and pragmatic mindset
- Collaborative approach with a focus on capability building and knowledge sharing
Required experience:
- Excellent SQL development experience
- Highly experienced in data ingestion, processing and storage techniques on cloud native platforms
- Experience with cloud data management (Snowflake, AWS, DBT or similar Paas/SaaS)
- Experience of enterprise data management and security at scale
- Knowledge of data modelling and optimisation
- Expert in data processing, testing and monitoring practices and frameworks
- Experience supporting production data systems and resolving operational issues in CI/CD processes and agile development workflows
- Expertise in information security principles and access control within data environments
- Degree or equivalent training in Computer Science, Engineering or a related discipline (desirable)
What we offer:
We provide competitive salary, staff travel benefits including unlimited basic and premium standby tickets on company flights, up to 30 discounted ‘Hotline’ airfares per year for you, friends and family, and opportunities for career growth and progression across the business.
Inclusion & Diversity
We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves. All backgrounds and cultures are welcomed.
