Overview
As Principal Data Engineer, you drive Funding Circle’s Data Platform strategy on Snowflake and AWS, shaping the future-state architecture and multi-phased migrations. You lead design and delivery of scalable data warehouse, lakehouse, and analytics capabilities, partnering with cross-functional teams to elevate data quality, governance, and product-driven data services. You’ll build a data platform that enables rapid, reliable insights for a mission-driven fintech. This role combines technical leadership with hands-on delivery and mentorship.
Pay / Benefits
- flexible benefit allowance
- private medical and dental
- life assurance
- share schemes
- annual learning allowance
- digital GP
Responsibilities
- Own the Data Platform strategy and multi-phased migration roadmap to the Future State Data Platform on Snowflake and AWS
- Lead architecture, design and development of cloud data warehouse, lakehouse, streaming and analytics solutions
- Define ingestion, transformation, orchestration patterns and data product boundaries between Product Engineering and Data Engineering
- Identify and mitigate architectural bottlenecks, tech debt and control weaknesses across the data ecosystem
- Lead Data as a Product Community of Practice including standards for metadata, data contracts, schema design, data product versioning, DQ, SLA/SLO, and semantic layer conventions
- Champion data quality, lineage, observability and governance with code-driven checks and production monitoring
- Contribute to Data Architecture Review Board decisions ensuring engineering-viable, consistent proposals with proper recording
- Mentor and train builders across the company to create sophisticated AI-enabled data solutions
- Advise on migration architecture, transition states, historical data migration and legacy decommissioning
Key requirements
- 10+ years in Data & Analytics, in Staff/Principal roles within Data Engineering, Data Architecture or Data Platform
- Extensive hands-on experience building and operating cloud data platforms on Snowflake and AWS
- Proven track record leading large-scale migrations from legacy systems
- Experience designing data products across source-aligned, aggregate and consumer-aligned patterns
- Proficiency with Snowflake, Apache Iceberg, Amazon Redshift and S3
- Hands-on with dbt and Apache Airflow for data transformations and orchestration
- Infrastructure as Code with Terraform and GitHub Actions
- Data governance, metadata, lineage, data contracts, and semantic layer concepts
- Experience leveraging AI tooling to accelerate data workflows and migrations
- Cross-functional partnership with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Governance teams
- Mentor/lead communities of practice and promote standards adoption
- Ability to architect custom AI solutions aligned with long-term mission
- Leadership
- Collaboration
- Growth mindset
- Snowflake
- AWS
- Apache Iceberg
Principal Data Engineer employer: Funding Circle
At Funding Circle, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer that champions the growth and well-being of our employees. With a vibrant work culture that combines the agility of a fintech start-up with the stability of a public company, we offer flexible working arrangements, competitive salaries, and comprehensive benefits including health support and professional development opportunities. Join us in London, where you can make a meaningful impact while enjoying perks like barista coffee, subsidised lunches, and a strong commitment to employee welfare.
