Lead Data Engineer

Lead Data Engineer

Location: Fully Remote (UK)

Salary: £75,000 - £85,000

Contract: Permanent, Full-Time

We're partnering with an established UK organisation to appoint a Lead Data Engineer as part of the continued development of its data engineering capability.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role for an experienced Data Engineer who wants genuine ownership of modern data engineering solutions. You'll play a key role in shaping technical direction, improving engineering standards and designing scalable data platforms and pipelines that support reporting, analytics and wider business requirements.

The role is genuinely hands-on, so we're looking for someone with strong commercial production experience across technologies including Databricks, Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, Python and SQL.

You'll work closely with technical and non-technical stakeholders, provide technical leadership and mentoring to other engineers, and remain heavily involved in the technology and delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development and optimisation of scalable data pipelines and cloud-based data platforms
• Take technical ownership of data engineering solutions and contribute to longer-term platform strategy
• Work hands-on with Databricks and Snowflake to build, optimise and maintain production data solutions
• Develop and maintain robust data transformation frameworks using dbt
• Design and manage data orchestration workflows using Apache Airflow, Azure Data Factory or similar
• Write, optimise and troubleshoot complex SQL, ensuring data solutions are efficient, reliable and scalable
• Drive improvements in data quality, performance, monitoring and engineering standards
• Make informed technical and architectural decisions around data platforms, pipelines and tooling
• Lead data engineering projects from initial requirements through to deployment and ongoing optimisation
• Provide technical leadership, mentoring and guidance to other Data Engineers
• Work closely with business and technical stakeholders to translate requirements into effective data solutions
• Identify opportunities to improve automation, scalability and the overall data engineering approach

Required Experience

• 5+ years' commercial experience within Data Engineering or a closely related role
• Proven experience providing technical leadership to Data Engineers within a modern data environment
• Strong, confident SQL skills, including writing, optimising and troubleshooting complex queries
• Strong Python skills for data engineering and production data pipelines
• Significant hands-on commercial experience with Databricks in a production environment
• Strong hands-on experience with dbt, including developing and maintaining transformation models and frameworks
• Proven experience with data orchestration tools such as Apache Airflow, Azure Data Factory or equivalent
• Strong experience with Snowflake, ideally alongside Databricks and dbt
• Strong understanding of modern ETL/ELT, data modelling, data warehousing and data quality principles
• Experience designing, building and maintaining scalable cloud-based data platforms and pipelines
• Experience contributing to data architecture and technical design decisions
• Strong understanding of Data Engineering best practice, with the ability to establish standards and improve existing approaches
• Experience working across a modern data stack including Databricks, Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, Python and SQL
• Excellent problem-solving, communication and stakeholder management skills

What's on Offer

• Fully remote working within the UK
• £75,000 - £85,000 salary
• Comprehensive benefits package
• Genuine ownership of data engineering architecture and delivery
• Opportunity to influence technical direction and engineering standards
• Exposure to modern cloud technologies and complex data projects
• Flexible working environment
• Excellent opportunities for professional development and progression

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced Lead Data Engineer who wants to combine hands-on engineering with genuine technical leadership. You'll have the opportunity to influence architecture, establish best practice and take real ownership of data engineering solutions while remaining close to the technology.