Data Engineer (we have office locations in Cambridge, Leeds and London) London

Genomics England is a global leader in enabling genomic medicine and research, focused on creating a world where everyone benefits from genomic healthcare. Building on the 100,000 Genomes Project, we support the NHS’s world-first national whole genome sequencing service and run the growing National Genomic Research Library, alongside delivering numerous major genomics initiatives. By connecting research and clinical care at national scale, we enable immediate healthcare benefits and advances for the future. Our mission is to provide the evidence and digital systems so that by 2035 genomics could play a role in up to half of all healthcare interactions, whilst securing the UK’s position as the best place to discover, prove and benefit from genomic innovations.

We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody. Behind the Healthcare and Research outcomes, Genomics England delivers through designing, developing and operating complex healthcare software systems. We're on the cusp of big changes with the real prospect of genomics becoming the fabric of everyday healthcare through the lifetime - from birth to old age.

Are you an experienced Data Engineer who enjoys working at scale, solving complex data challenges and building reliable data solutions? Do you want to apply your engineering skills to work that has a meaningful impact on healthcare and research? At Genomics England, we work with some of the most complex clinical and genomic data in the world, helping researchers, clinicians and scientists use that data to advance research and improve patient outcomes.

You’ll be joining our Generate Research Data (GRD) Service at an exciting time. GRD works with internal and external partners to generate or onboard new data that enriches the National Genomic Research Library, supporting a varied portfolio across areas such as rare disease and cancer, involving genomic, multi-omic, bespoke clinical data and emerging sequencing technologies. This is an opportunity to tackle challenging engineering problems, optimise data pipelines and build scalable, high-quality data services, helping lay the foundations for scientific discovery and new clinical and research capabilities.

We’re looking for an established, hands-on Data Engineer to bring strong technical expertise to this work, improving how large volumes of sensitive healthcare and genomic data are acquired, transformed, stored and delivered securely and efficiently. If you enjoy building robust data solutions, working with complex data at scale and applying your skills to something that genuinely matters, this could be a great opportunity to make a real difference.

What you’ll be doing:

• Designing, building and optimising scalable data pipelines and processing systems, from data acquisition and transformation through to delivery.
• Working with large volumes of clinical and genomic data, supporting data lineage, metadata capture, de-identification and integration with reference data.
• Building and improving data solutions in AWS, applying cloud-first engineering practices and making effective use of storage, compute and orchestration technologies.
• Working with tools such as Python, RDBMS, Prefect, Tableau, Semarchy, Aspera and Globus across data orchestration, visualisation, data management and secure data transfer.
• Developing and optimising data models, storage solutions and data products for performance, scalability, security, cost and reliable data delivery.
• Improving data quality, testing, automation and observability, helping ensure pipelines and services are reliable, maintainable and fit for purpose.
• Working closely with engineering, QA, architecture, product and other specialist teams to deliver well-integrated data services.
• Supporting machine learning and data visualisation capabilities by enabling trusted, well-structured data.
• Sharing knowledge, promoting good engineering practices and helping strengthen data engineering capability across the chapter and wider organisation.

What you’ll bring:

• Proven hands-on experience designing, building and optimising data pipelines and large-scale processing systems, including ETL and ELT.
• Strong practical experience with AWS and cloud-based data engineering, including relevant storage, compute and orchestration technologies.
• Strong coding skills using Python, alongside experience with testing, CI/CD and infrastructure as code.
• Experience developing data models and delivering reliable data products, with a good understanding of data engineering patterns and practices.
• A sound understanding of data quality, data lineage, metadata management and data governance.
• Experience working with sensitive data in regulated environments, with a good understanding of security, performance, scalability and compliance considerations.
• Experience working with genomic, bioinformatics, clinical or other complex healthcare datasets.
• Familiarity with data orchestration, visualisation, data management and secure data transfer tools.
• The ability to work collaboratively across technical and non-technical teams, communicate complex concepts clearly and contribute to effective engineering practices.

Bonus if you have:

• Knowledge of healthcare data models, standards and terminology, such as FHIR, HL7, OMOP or SNOMED CT.
• Familiarity with NHS and wider healthcare data ecosystems, including clinical, primary care or other health datasets.
• Understanding of healthcare data linkage, pseudonymisation, information governance and data quality challenges across clinical and research environments.
• Experience working with Trusted Research Environments or other secure, privacy-preserving data platforms.
• Experience enabling the secondary use of health data for research, analytics or other scientific use cases.
• Experience supporting machine learning or data visualisation through the development of reliable data pipelines and products.

Qualifications:

• Ideally, you’ll have a master’s degree or equivalent practical experience in data engineering, data science, biostatistics, informatics or a related field.

Additional Information:

• Closing date for applications: Sunday 15th November at 23:00 (UK time)
• Salary from: £75,500
• Please note: We are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:

• Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday, plus bank holidays, plus additional leave for long service, and also the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), an Electric Vehicle salary sacrifice scheme and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
• Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
• Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.

Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace:

Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background.

Genomics England’s policies of non-discrimination and equity will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor. Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties. Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity.

We aim to remove barriers in our recruitment processes and to be flexible with our interview processes. Should you require any adjustments that may help you to fully participate in the recruitment process, we encourage you to discuss this with us.

Culture:

We have four key behaviours that represent what we would like Genomics England to feel like and the culture we want to encourage, in order for us to achieve our mission. These behaviours help us all work well together, deliver on our outcomes, celebrate our successes and share feedback with each other.

Blended working model:

Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full time on site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team.

Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations are: Canary Wharf, Cambridge and Leeds.

Onboarding background checks:

As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.