Senior Data Engineer

The External Relations (ER) department was created in February 2020 and is comprised of 3 main but complementary functions: Private fundraising, Communications and Policy & Advocacy. The ER department is three years into a 5‑year ground‑breaking and ambitious global strategy that will improve IRC’s ability to ‘punch above its weight’ in private income, advocacy and brand awareness.

We are seeking a skilled and versatile Data Engineer to join our dynamic analytics team, which includes data scientists and analysts. In this role, you will leverage your expertise in both analytics engineering and machine learning operations (ML Ops), as well as infrastructure design and deployment, to build, maintain, and optimize the systems and tools that support our data pipelines, machine learning workflows, and business intelligence reporting.

Major Responsibilities

• Support the entire workflow of the ER data model: data pipeline development, ELT performance, timely loading of data sets, and maintenance of data models via the use of monitoring, testing, and automation.
• Collaborate with analysts, data scientists, and ER stakeholders to understand the opportunities to develop well‑defined, integrated, production‑quality, and re‑usable data models in SQL using dbt, ensuring data quality.
• Collaborate with data scientists to build and automate end‑to‑end ML pipelines, from data preparation to model deployment and monitoring, including designing, implementing, and maintaining MLflow‑based workflows for model tracking, versioning, and deployment.
• Apply software engineering practices when creating new data models to ensure data quality & standardisation across our pipelines, and ML and BI tools.
• Employ comprehensive testing and documentation practices.
• Drive clear requirements documentation and contribute to code review.
• Identify and execute internal process improvements, including re‑designing infrastructure for greater scalability and automating manual processes.
• Act as a technical expert to the rest of the ER analytics team to mentor analysts and improve analytics engineering as a practice across all ER analytics (query development, extending data models, software development practices, PowerBI data modelling governance, ML Ops).
• Contribute to continuously clarifying, simplifying, and otherwise improving the conceptual foundations of ER Analytics data models; develop and maintain conceptual data model artifacts including readme‑level documentation, model diagrams, prototypes, change notices, etc.
• Collaborate with engineering team, analysts, and business users to implement new ELT pipelines, data infrastructure improvements, and integration of new ER and cross‑IRC data sets and other data consumption assets.
• Partner with the Associate Director, Analytics Engineering to evaluate data stack improvements.
• Support other analytics tasks as needed.

Required Skills and Competencies (Minimum Criteria)

• Curiosity to explore complex and ambiguous problems and deliver structured analytics solutions.
• 4+ years working in the field of data and analytics.
• At least 2+ years of professional experience manipulating large‑scale data, using both Python and SQL (nested data structure manipulation, windowing functions, query optimisation, data partitioning techniques).
• Strong experience with data pipeline management technologies (e.g. Airflow, dbt), dependency checking, schema design, and dimensional data modelling.
• Strong experience with ML model management tools, such as MLflow.
• 2+ years of experience with cloud‑based data warehouses (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Redshift, Azure).
• Knowledgeable and passionate about the ‘modern data stack’.
• Strong adherence to data ops best practices, including version control (e.g., GitHub), and data testing.
• Independent worker with strong attention to detail & commitment to a high standard of work product.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts to non‑technical stakeholders and translate business needs into technical requirements.
• Desire to work in a multi‑cultural environment and collaborate with people from different backgrounds and experiences.

Nice‑to‑Haves

• Familiarity with Salesforce or similar CRM technology.
• Experience owning dbt in a high‑growth organisation, including deploying capabilities such as utils, packages, tests, snapshots, and incremental tables.
• Experience in Snowflake and Databricks.
• Exposure to Microsoft BI tooling: PowerBI, Power Query and DAX/MDX scripting language.
• Understanding of infrastructure‑as‑code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and CI/CD pipelines for ML/AI workflows.
• Experience with distributed data processing frameworks such as ApacheSpark or ApacheKafka is a plus.

Working Environment

Standard office working environment. This role may require working remotely full or part time, and part‑time remote employees may be required to share workspace.

Standard Responsibilities

• Promote and actively participate in initiatives and efforts to build team engagement, inclusion and cohesion in the IRC London office.
• Foster ongoing learning, honest dialogue and reflection to strengthen safeguarding and to promote IRC values and adherence to IRC policies.

Benefits and Pay Range

UK: Narrowing the gender gap – flexible hours (when possible), enhanced maternity/adoption leave and pay and gender‑sensitive security protocols. Fixed‑term until June 2027 with the possibility of going permanent. Pay ranges: UK £54,350 – £65,800; Germany €58,000 – €62,000.

Equal Opportunities & EEO Statement

IRC UK strives to be an equal opportunities employer. IRC UK is committed to equality of opportunity and to non‑discrimination for all job applicants and employees, and we seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs, nationality, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability. IRC UK welcomes applications from all candidates, including under‑represented groups and refugees who have the right to work in the UK. IRC UK will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided with reasonable adjustments to participate in the job application and/or interview process, and for essential job functions if appointed to a role.

Please note that the recruitment process will involve online screenings and interviews. For assistance, contact the IRC UK HR team.