Lead Data Engineer

Job Title: Lead Data Engineer

Location: Cardiff or London / Remote, with occasional visits to our Cardiff or London office (roughly once a fortnight)

Who are we?

Sonovate is redefining the future of work through intelligent financial infrastructure. As a technology‑first fintech, we power the contingent workforce economy with scalable, automated funding and workflow solutions that help businesses grow with confidence. Our platform combines embedded finance, automation and seamless integrations to unlock efficiency, flexibility and growth for our customers.

Looking ahead, we’re focused on building long-term value and creating structural advantage for businesses in a rapidly evolving world of work. Our ambition is to continually innovate, strengthen our foundations and explore new opportunities that make Sonovate an indispensable partner for organisations everywhere. If you’re motivated by shaping the future and delivering impact at scale, you’ll thrive here. Join us as we power the next generation of work.

Role Summary:

The Lead Data Engineer is a T-shaped engineer who owns the delivery of data products end to end, from initial acquisition through to analytical enablement. This includes internal reporting, customer-facing features of our SaaS product, and AI-driven applications. They provide subject matter expertise to all stakeholders and are trusted to make sound technical decisions independently.

The Lead Data Engineer produces exemplary, maintainable code while setting the standard for engineering practices across the team. They lead root cause analysis on complex platform issues, evaluate new tooling and platform capabilities, and actively coach peers on design patterns, domain knowledge, and engineering excellence. They have deep knowledge of the data platform and multiple business domains, and they anticipate analytics needs rather than waiting to be asked.

They will act as liaison between the data capability and the wider infrastructure team. They should be able to hold their own in discussions with Principal Software Engineers and the Head of IT infrastructure to persuade, influence and support wider technical infrastructure decisions where appropriate.

Experience and Skills:

• Extensive experience integrating APIs and working with structured and semi-structured data (e.g. JSON, Avro, XML), including both batch and streaming pipelines.
• Leads design on feature-level complexity problems, breaking down medium-sized engineering challenges independently.
• Coaches’ others on design patterns, domain knowledge, and engineering practices.
• Demonstrates a track record of taking data products from proof-of-concept through to production.
• Proficient with Git and Azure DevOps for source control and CI/CD orchestration; comfortable with a range of CI build tools and automation, with transferable skills across platforms.

Tools

• Fully capable in delivering data pipelines using Python, SQL, dbt, and tools like Azure Functions and Logic Apps.
• Able to evaluate new features of the Snowflake data platform (e.g. dynamic tables, zero-copy clones) to determine how they could be leveraged and implemented.
• Demonstrates advanced knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and the underlying technologies; able to build new pipelines from scratch where needed.
• Familiar with infrastructure tooling such as Terraform and Ansible; able to contribute to provisioning and configuration tasks.
• Familiar with the broader Azure ecosystem including Azure AKS, Service Bus, Event Hubs, Azure SQL, CosmosDB, and Azure Search; able to provision and support relevant infrastructure as part of end-to-end data product delivery.
• Working knowledge of C# .NET Core is welcome but not essential, in an environment that is predominantly Python and SQL.

Technical

• Writes exemplary, high-quality code adhering to shared best practices. Applies TDD and BDD practices, improving testing strategies by balancing coverage and business criticality.
• Refactors multi-component systems to enhance simplicity and consistency.
• Works to meet and exceed operational excellence, performance efficiency, reliability, cost optimisation, and security requirements.
• Challenges poor practice constructively and drives a strong engineering culture within the team.

Analytical

• Leads root cause analysis for complex pipeline and platform issues, ensuring resolution or timely escalation.
• Utilises observability tools and query languages to improve system stability and reduce alert noise.
• Able to undertake complex analysis activities as required and translate findings into actionable recommendations.

Domain and Application

• Possesses deep Data Platform knowledge, including data flows, interdependencies, and the design rationale of the architecture.
• Proactively improves platform reliability and coaches others in domain concepts.
• Anticipates analytics needs when implementing new data pipelines, rather than waiting for stakeholders to raise them.
• Contributes to customer-facing data products as part of the team’s shift towards externally visible data capability.

AI-Enhanced Operational Excellence

You leverage AI to support informed, efficient and forward‑thinking decisions in your day‑to‑day work. You use approved AI tools appropriately to improve quality, consistency and productivity, while applying judgement, checking accuracy and retaining ownership of outcomes. You uphold the safe, ethical and responsible use of AI, ensuring transparency, confidentiality and human oversight remain central, and you actively build your confidence and capability as AI continues to evolve.

What will you get in return?

• 28 days holiday + bank holidays
• Private medical insurance with Bupa
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Techscheme with Apple and Currys PC World
• Cyclescheme
• Working with latest technologies and leading SaaS providers
• Eye care vouchers with Specsavers
• 50% discounted gym membership
• 50% off mobile apps (Calm, Duolingo, Audible, Les Mills)
• 2 days charity leave per year
• You’ll work for a company that is passionate about personal development and a strong community focussed culture

How to Apply:

If your answer is ‘yes’ then click apply to find out more!

If you require any reasonable adjustments to support you during the interview process, please let our Talent Acquisition Partner (Alex Morrell) know and we'd be happy to help!

We know that diverse teams are strong teams. We promote a diverse, inclusive and empowering culture and are committed to recruiting, retaining and developing all our employees

Please note: All successful applicants who are offered a role at Sonovate will be required to pass background screening checks before starting with us. These checks will include National ID Checks, Right to Work, Employment References, Adverse Financial History, Criminal Record, Global Sanctions, Bankruptcy checks. Our Talent Acquisition team will be able to run you through these in detail at the early stage of your application