Principal Data Engineer

Principal Data Engineer

Lead the design and delivery of a modern cloud-based data platform, driving engineering standards, architecture, and innovation across a growing data function.

The Opportunity

This is a senior technical leadership role responsible for shaping data engineering strategy, architecture, and best practices across multiple product domains. Working within a modern cloud environment and Data Mesh architecture, you will drive the development of scalable, secure, and high-performing data solutions while mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction.

Key Responsibilities

Provide technical leadership across data engineering teams and product domains.

Define and implement data platform architecture, standards, and best practices.

Design and optimise data ingestion, transformation, quality, security, monitoring, and governance processes.

Lead the development of Data Mesh principles, data models, and semantic data layers.

Drive automation, CI/CD adoption, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Mentor and coach data engineers, promoting engineering excellence.

Ensure cross-domain interoperability, scalability, and compliance.

Collaborate with architects, platform engineers, and business stakeholders to deliver robust data solutions.About You

Extensive experience in cloud-based data engineering and distributed systems.

Strong knowledge of Data Mesh, domain-driven design, and data product thinking.

Proven ability to lead teams and deliver complex data engineering initiatives.

Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

Passionate about engineering quality, innovation, and mentoring others.Essential Skills & Experience

10+ years' experience in Data Engineering.

Experience in a Lead or Principal Data Engineering role.

Strong cloud data platform expertise, including Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Hands-on experience with BigQuery, Dataflow, Datastream, Data Fusion, Cloud Functions, Dataproc, and Airflow/Composer.

Advanced SQL and Python skills.

Expertise in data lakes, data warehouses, and modern data architectures.

Strong understanding of data governance, lineage, MDM, data privacy, and PII handling.

Experience optimising complex queries and large-scale data processing.

Proven mentoring, coaching, and leadership capability.

Experience working within Agile/Scrum environments and across the full software development lifecycle.This is an excellent opportunity for a senior data engineering leader to play a key role in the evolution of a modern cloud data platform, influencing architectural decisions and helping shape the future of a data-driven organisation.

Sponsorship is not available - applicants must have full right to work in the UK