At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and optimise data pipelines for real-time river water quality monitoring.
- Company: Join United Utilities, a leader in environmental protection and sustainability.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, up to 10.5% bonus, outstanding pension, and wellbeing support.
- Other info: Hybrid work model with opportunities for technical leadership and mentorship.
- Why this job: Make a real-world impact on sustainable water management while advancing your data engineering skills.
- Qualifications: 5+ years in data engineering with expertise in Databricks and cloud platforms.
The predicted salary is between 70000 - 90000 £ per year.
At United Utilities, we’re committed to protecting the environment that millions of people depend on every day. As part of our Digital Services team, you’ll play a pivotal role in one of our most important and high-impact initiatives: near real-time monitoring of river water quality.
As the Lead Data Engineer on our River Water Quality Programme, you’ll design, build, and optimise Databricks-based data pipelines that enable timely, reliable and well-governed data across the organisation. You’ll:
- Design and develop scalable batch and streaming data pipelines using Databricks, Spark and Delta Lake
- Optimise Spark jobs and workflows to meet near real-time monitoring SLAs
- Build and maintain streaming pipelines using Structured Streaming and Delta Live Tables
- Ensure strong data governance, including schema enforcement, validation rules and ACID compliance
- Orchestrate and automate pipelines using Databricks Jobs, APIs or cloud-native schedulers
- Collaborate with data scientists, analysts and environmental specialists to deliver high-quality, well-documented datasets
- Monitor, troubleshoot and continuously improve production pipelines for reliability, performance and cost efficiency
- Champion best practices across CI/CD, testing, version control and documentation
- Act as a technical leader and mentor, raising standards across the data engineering community
What you’ll bring:
- Deep expertise in Databricks (Spark / PySpark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Workflows)
- Strong experience building ETL/ELT pipelines, both batch and streaming
- Advanced Python and SQL skills
- Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS or GCP)
- Solid understanding of data modelling and modern architectures
- Strong knowledge of data governance, security and compliance
- Experience with orchestration tools such as Airflow
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, Git workflows and automated testing
- Exposure to real-time, IoT or environmental telemetry data
Experience & Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering or a related discipline
- 5+ years’ experience in data engineering roles, including 3+ years with Databricks
- Proven ability to lead technically and mentor engineers
What you’ll get:
- Up to 10.5% annual bonus
- Outstanding pension – up to 21% combined contribution
- Wellbeing benefits and support programmes
You’ll be working on data that truly matters — protecting rivers, supporting environmental compliance, and helping shape the future of sustainable water management across the North West. If you’re passionate about modern data engineering, enjoy technical leadership, and want your work to have real-world environmental impact, we’d love to hear from you.
Lead Data Engineer (Databricks) in Warrington employer: United Utilities
At United Utilities, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work culture that prioritises environmental sustainability and employee well-being. As a Lead Data Engineer in our Digital Services team, you'll enjoy competitive salaries, generous pension contributions, and a supportive environment that fosters professional growth and technical leadership. Join us at our Lingley Mere location, where your work will directly contribute to protecting vital water resources and shaping the future of sustainable water management in the North West.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Lead Data Engineer (Databricks) in Warrington
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We think you need these skills to ace Lead Data Engineer (Databricks) in Warrington
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show Off Your Projects:In the world of data science, your projects can speak volumes about your skills. Make sure to showcase a few key projects in your CV or portfolio, especially those that highlight your ability to work with data sets, build models, or use relevant tools like Python, R, or SQL. Don’t forget to include links to any GitHub repositories if applicable!
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Craft a Tailored Cover Letter:For a full-time role at United Utilities, your cover letter should reflect your passion for data science and your excitement about the specific projects or values of the company. Dive into why you’re a good fit, how your skills align with their needs, and any unique perspectives you can bring to the team.
Stand Out with Relevant Courses and Certifications:Although experience talks, relevant courses or certifications can be your ticket to impressing hiring managers at United Utilities. Mention any standout courses you've completed that equipped you with essential skills, such as machine learning certifications or data visualisation courses. This shows your commitment to continuously developing your skills in the field!
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✨Brush Up on Your Statistics
For a data science role, we need to seriously sharpen our statistics skills. Get ready to tackle technical questions on probability distributions, hypothesis testing, and regression analysis. These are often the bread and butter of data science interviews, so don't just skim over them!
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Prepare a killer portfolio showcasing your data science projects. We should include details about the datasets used, the tools and techniques applied, and the impact of your findings. If we can walk them through a particularly challenging project or a cool visualisation that had real-world implications, it’ll really make us stand out!
✨Get Comfortable with Python and R
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✨Prepare for Case Studies
Expect to encounter real-world case studies during the interview. We might be asked how we’d approach a data problem or analyse a dataset to extract insights. It's essential to think out loud and demonstrate our problem-solving process so that the interviewer can see our logical thinking in action.
