Data Engineer

About Classic Football Shirts

Classic Football Shirts started in 2006 when university friends Matt Dale and Doug Bierton set out to track down rare football shirts. From those early days in a bedroom full of rails, the company has grown into a thriving business with a talented team, a busy warehouse, and stores in Manchester, London, and the US. Our passion for football and the stories behind every shirt drives everything we do. At Classic Football Shirts, we work together, stay grounded, and always put our fans at the heart of the business. We share the passion, win together, stay fan-focused, be agile, and stay grounded - values that guide how we operate every day.

We welcome all suitably qualified applicants and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all our employees. We have a great work ethic and a friendly group of diverse employees who enjoy working here to help carry out our mission.

The role:

As a Data Engineer, you will be an integral part of our small data team, contributing to the development, maintenance, and enhancement of our data infrastructure and capabilities. This role involves close collaboration with the development team, business analysts, and key internal stakeholders to design, build, and improve data systems through data pipelines and AI.

This role is ideal for someone with a solid grounding in data concepts and a genuine interest in applying and developing their technical skills in a real-world business environment. While you’re not expected to know everything on day one, you should have a problem-solving mindset, a willingness to learn, and some practical experience working with data. Your work will contribute to building solutions that help drive better operational performance and business decisions to support day-to-day operations.

This role offers hybrid working with a primary location of our Manchester City Centre office - 39 hours per week.

Duties/Responsibilities:

• Work closely with other teams and stakeholders to gather and understand business requirements, translating them into technical specifications.
• Design, develop, and implement data pipelines (ETL/ELT), ensuring reliable data flow between systems.
• Integrate and manage data from various sources such as relational databases, APIs, and cloud storage.
• Clean, transform, and validate data to maintain high quality, consistency, and accuracy.
• Design and implement data models for efficient storage and retrieval, following best practices.
• Develop and maintain automated data processing workflows to ensure timely data delivery to stakeholders.
• Work independently to build and update dashboards and reports, providing clear and actionable data visualisations for business users.
• Monitor and troubleshoot data pipelines, identifying and resolving issues as they arise.
• Document data solutions, pipelines, and models to ensure knowledge sharing and future maintainability.
• Proactively stay up-to-date with new data engineering tools and techniques, and identify opportunities to improve existing processes.
• Get involved with AI initiatives, including the Claude Enterprise company roll-out, through the company utilising differing tool sets based on use cases.
• Provide occasional out-of-hours support as needed.

Knowledge/Skills:

• Background in data analysis or data engineering with proven professional experience.
• A good understanding of core data concepts, such as data pipelines, ETL/ELT processes, and data warehousing.
• Familiarity with Python and SQL, with the ability to write, understand, and debug basic scripts or queries.
• Exposure to cloud platforms (ideally Google Cloud Platform, AWS, or Azure) and a willingness to learn more about cloud-based data services.
• Understanding of relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) and some knowledge of analytical or big data tools is a plus (e.g., Spark, DBT, DataBricks, Hive).
• Some experience building data solutions, this could be through university projects, boot camps, internships, or personal/side projects.
• Interest in Business Intelligence (BI) and experience (even at a basic level) with tools such as Tableau, Power BI, or Looker, is advantageous.
• Problem-solving mindset with a desire to learn and tackle new challenges.
• Good communication skills to work with both technical and non-technical colleagues.
• Ability to work independently, manage your time, and seek help or guidance when needed.
• E-commerce experience is a bonus, but not required.
• An understanding of AI technologies and where this is best used.
• Experience with Claude is a bonus, but not required.
• Eagerness to develop and grow your skills as a data professional.

What’s in it for you?

• A collaborative, quality-focused data culture.
• Hybrid or remote working.
• Competitive salary and benefits package.
• Ongoing learning and professional development support.
• A stable, growing business with long-term investment in technology.

Other benefits include:

• 50% Staff discount
• Regular Social events; Summer Party, Christmas Party, Occasional Football Events
• Friendly and supportive team
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

To apply: Please email CV and Cover Letter to recruitment@classicfootballshirts.co.uk

Please note, we are not engaging with recruitment agencies for this role, so we kindly ask that agencies do not contact us regarding this vacancy.