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Principal Data EngineerSalary: £97,000 + 15% bonusLocation: Central London, 2 days in office
We're hiring on behalf of our client, a global leader in personalised photo products, for an experienced Principal Data Engineer to join their UK data & ML team. This is a senior hands-on leadership role driving data platform strategy and engineering standards as they evolve toward decentralised data and ML adoption.
Role overview:You'll play a central role in re-architecting and scaling their data platform to meet growing business and customer needs. This includes building robust, observable data pipelines, ensuring data trustworthiness, and mentoring a team of engineers while collaborating closely with Product, Ops, and Marketing stakeholders.
Key responsibilities:
- Lead design and build of scalable, cloud-native data solutions with best-in-class governance and observability
- Define technical principles and data engineering standards across distributed teams
- Coach data and analytics engineers on SDLC best practices (CI/CD, testing, versioning)
- Contribute to strategic planning and technical roadmaps in collaboration with product and engineering leads
- Influence cross-functional stakeholders on architecture and implementation trade-offs
- Ensure data is reliable, timely, and actionable for operational and ML-driven use cases
About you:
- Strong background in software and data engineering leadership
- Proficient in Python, SQL, and modern ELT practices (e.g. dbt, Fivetran, Airflow)
- Deep knowledge of data warehousing (Snowflake), AWS services (e.g. Lambda, Kinesis, S3), and IaC (Terraform)
- Experienced in building data platforms with a focus on governance, reliability, and business value
- Comfortable driving architectural conversations and mentoring engineers across disciplines
- Advocate for decentralised data models, such as data mesh
Nice to have:
- Experience with data quality tools (e.g., Monte Carlo)
- Knowledge of data security and compliance
- Previous work in e-commerce or consumer tech
This is a chance to shape the next generation of data systems powering personalised customer experiences at scale - while working in a people-first, purpose-driven culture.
Get in touch to find out more or apply.
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