Data Engineer in Bristol

Our client is looking for an experienced Data Engineer with a strong eye towards solution architecture. This is a hands-on engineering role for someone who enjoys building robust data solutions but is also comfortable looking beyond individual pipelines or features to consider how the overall platform should be designed, governed and evolved. The role is 3 days (Tues-Thurs) in central Bristol and 2 days remote.

We are looking for someone who can take ownership of significant technical problems, translate business requirements into well-designed solutions, and help establish the architectural and engineering standards that allow our data platform to scale. The successful candidate will be an experienced engineer first and foremost, with the capability and ambition to take increasing responsibility for solution and data architecture.

Key responsibilities:

• Design, build and maintain reliable end-to-end data pipelines and data-processing solutions.
• Write high-quality production code, principally using Python and SQL.
• Design solutions using modern data-stack technologies (Snowflake here but any data platform) and appropriate cloud infrastructure.
• Take ownership of the architecture for significant areas of our data platform.
• Translate business and product requirements into clear technical designs and implementation plans.
• Make pragmatic architectural decisions balancing scalability, performance, security, maintainability and cost.
• Establish and maintain clear architectural documentation, engineering standards and design principles.
• Implement and improve CI/CD processes, automated testing and deployment controls.
• Design appropriate security, permissions and access-control mechanisms across data and cloud environments.
• Apply appropriate data-modelling methodologies across data lakes, warehouses and analytical datasets.
• Establish and enforce standards for data lineage, operational metadata, data quality and observability.
• Ensure automated testing and quality controls are built into pipelines, including appropriate gating of pipeline operations and deployments.
• Implement monitoring and alerting that allows data and platform issues to be identified and resolved quickly.
• Lead and contribute to technical and architectural design discussions.
• Review the work and designs of other engineers and help maintain high engineering standards.
• Mentor less experienced engineers and support their technical development.
• Work closely with Research, Product and other business teams to ensure technical solutions meet real business requirements.

Technical experience:

• Programming: Strong Python and SQL skills are essential. Experience with other programming languages is beneficial.
• Data engineering: Proven experience designing, building and operating production-grade data pipelines end to end.
• Modern data stack: Experience with modern ELT, transformation and orchestration technologies. Our environment includes technologies such as dbt, Dagster/Airflow and Snowflake, although experience with comparable technologies is equally relevant.
• Cloud infrastructure: Experience designing and implementing secure, scalable solutions on a major cloud platform. We use AWS, but strong GCP or Azure experience is transferable.
• CI/CD and testing: Experience implementing CI/CD practices, automated testing, deployment processes and release controls within data or software engineering environments.
• Data architecture and modelling: Strong understanding of data architecture and advanced data-modelling approaches across data lakes, warehouses and analytical platforms.
• Security and access control: Experience implementing appropriate security, permissions, role-based access and data-access controls.
• Data governance and observability: Experience implementing frameworks for data lineage, metadata management, data-quality monitoring and observability.

Solution architecture:

We do not require someone whose current job title is Solution Architect. We are particularly interested in experienced engineers who naturally think architecturally: people who consider how individual engineering decisions fit into the wider platform and who can take increasing ownership of technical design.

You should be comfortable:

• Owning the design of substantial technical solutions.
• Producing clear technical and architectural documentation.
• Defining and enforcing engineering and architectural standards.
• Evaluating alternative technical approaches and explaining the trade-offs.
• Designing for security, resilience, maintainability and future scale.
• Leading technical design discussions with other engineers.
• Communicating technical decisions clearly to non-technical stakeholders.

Personal qualities:

• Remains genuinely hands-on and enjoys engineering.
• Takes ownership rather than waiting for detailed technical instructions.
• Can move comfortably between detailed engineering problems and higher-level system design.
• Is pragmatic rather than dogmatic about technologies and architecture.
• Communicates complex technical concepts clearly.
• Is comfortable challenging existing approaches where there is a better solution.
• Enjoys coaching and developing other engineers.
• Values documentation, testing and engineering discipline.
• Can work effectively across technical, product, research and commercial teams.

What we are looking for:

The ideal candidate is likely to be an established Senior Data Engineer, Lead Data Engineer or similarly experienced engineer who is ready to take greater ownership of solution architecture. We are not looking for a pure enterprise architect or someone who has moved away from hands-on engineering. Equally, we need more than a strong developer who is focused solely on implementing predefined solutions. The right person will combine strong engineering capability with architectural thinking, technical ownership and the ability to raise engineering standards across the team.