Lead Data Engineer
Lead the architecture and engineering of enterprise data platforms, establishing technical standards, delivery patterns and production ownership across complex data programmes.
Job description
The Lead Data Engineer will own technical direction across data ingestion, transformation, storage, integration, governance and operational reliability.
The role combines hands-on architecture with engineering leadership, design review, stakeholder communication and delivery assurance across multiple workstreams.
Key responsibilities
- Define data-platform architecture, engineering standards and reusable delivery patterns.
- Lead design reviews covering scalability, security, lineage, observability, resilience and cost.
- Guide engineers on implementation, code quality, testing and production support practices.
- Coordinate with solution architects, security, application and analytics teams on cross-platform dependencies.
- Own technical risk, migration sequencing and operational-readiness decisions for major data releases.
Qualifications
- 9–12 years of data-engineering or enterprise software-engineering experience, including technical leadership.
- Deep SQL and strong Python/Spark capability with production-scale platform experience.
- Experience architecting modern cloud data platforms and distributed data-processing solutions.
- Strong knowledge of data modelling, governance, security, lineage and operational support.
- Ability to lead technical decisions with senior engineering and business stakeholders.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, Kafka or equivalent enterprise platforms.
- Experience in regulated or high-volume environments.
- Cloud architecture or data-platform certification where relevant.
Benefits & employment terms
- Compensation, leave, pension and any role-specific benefits are confirmed during the recruitment process and stated in the written offer.
- Any client-site, travel, security-screening or right-to-work requirements are confirmed before appointment.
Nature of working style
- This is a senior client-facing engineering role with responsibility for architecture quality and team technical direction.
- The role combines design leadership with hands-on review and delivery governance.
Location
London-based with UK client-site workshops and architecture sessions where required.
