Data Software Engineer – Python

Sainsbury's Limited; City Of London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Staff discount

Pensions

Life insurance

Bonus up to 10% of salary

Annual leave + buy extra leave

Cycle to work scheme

Health cash plans

Employee assistance programme

Season ticket loans

Pay advance

26 weeks maternity/adoption leave

Job summary

Sainsbury's Limited is seeking a Data Software Engineer – Python at our London Tech campus. You will build and maintain data platform capabilities, implement infrastructure as code, and deliver reliable data pipelines across environments.

The role requires hands-on engineering, end-to-end delivery, and mentoring of peers to promote engineering best practices. The role emphasizes ownership, documentation, and strong collaboration with data engineers, ML engineers, and analysts.

Qualifications

• Strong Python programming and testing skills with clean, documented code.
• Experience building data platform components, including data ingestion, transformation and governance.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/Azure) and IaC tooling.
• Experience deploying and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and observability dashboards.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain data platform capabilities including ingestion pipelines and transformation frameworks (DBT).
• Implement infrastructure as code with Terraform and manage cloud resources for data workloads.
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions) with automated tests and deployments.
• Configure observability with New Relic and related tooling, including alerts and dashboards.
• Contribute to ML/AI workflows and data transformation/orchestration tooling (Airflow/Astronomer).
• Provide support to data engineers, data scientists, and analysts, and participate in code reviews.

Skills

Python

CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code

Observability

Data platform

Mentoring

Tools

Terraform

GitHub Actions

DBT

Airflow

Snowflake

Databricks

Docker

New Relic

Kubernetes

Job description

Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre, London, EC1M 6HA
Hours: Full time
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Sainsbury's Tech
Closing date: 19 October 2026

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you’ll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We’ve made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.

Data Software Engineer – Python

In a nutshell

We are looking for a strong python engineer who builds, tests, and maintains data platform capabilities that enable teams across Sainsbury’s to leverage data and AI effectively. Implements infrastructure as code using Terraform and CI/CD pipelines via GitHub Actions to ensure reliable, repeatable deployments across data workloads. Does what they say they will do by delivering quality platform components and shows care for colleagues by creating well-documented, accessible solutions that make data engineering simpler and more efficient.

This is a hands‑on engineering role requiring strong technical expertise, ownership of end‑to‑end delivery, and the ability to mentor other engineers and promote engineering best practices.

What I am accountable for

• Build and maintain data platform capabilities including data ingestion pipelines, transformation frameworks (DBT), monitoring solutions, and governance controls following established patterns and technical standards.
• Implement infrastructure as code using Terraform, deploying and managing cloud resources for data platforms across environments with guidance from senior engineers and adherence to configuration standards.
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, implementing automated testing, deployment workflows, and operational automation for data pipelines.
• Configure and maintain observability and monitoring using New Relic and other tools, implementing instrumentation, alerts, and dashboards for data pipelines and ML systems based on established patterns.
• Contribute to platform capabilities that support data transformation (DBT), pipeline orchestration (Airflow/Astronomer), MLOps workflows including model versioning and deployment automation and much more
• Support platform users including data engineers, ML engineers, data scientists, and analysts by troubleshooting issues, providing technical guidance, and creating clear documentation.
• Participate in code reviews and knowledge sharing activities, learning from senior engineers and contributing to team capability through documentation and peer collaboration across data domains.

Identify and elevate technical debt, performance issues, and operational problems in data platforms, working with senior engineers to implement fixes and improvements.

Respond to incidents affecting platform services, supporting diagnosis and resolution of infrastructure issues, pipeline failures, and performance degradation under guidance from senior team members.

What I need to know

Strong programming skills in Python including package and environment management

Strong software engineering skills (experience of writing maintainable, tested code with proper error handling and documentation)

Strong proficiency in cloud platforms (AWS and/or Azure) with good understanding of data services, networking, and compute infrastructure

Good working experience with infrastructure as code using Terraform, including resource creation, module usage, and state management

Familiarity with containerization (Docker) and basic container orchestration concepts

Knowledge in platform security practices including IAM, encryption, and network security basics

Knowledge of data warehouse and lakehouse technologies (Snowflake, Databricks)

Awareness of FinOps principles and cloud cost optimization

Experience supporting multiple teams or use cases with shared platform capabilities

Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, including workflow creation, automation, and deployment processes

Working knowledge of data transformation tools, particularly DBT, including model development and testing

Understanding of data pipeline orchestration tools (Airflow/Astronomer/Azure Data Factory)

Experience with observability and monitoring tools including New Relic or similar platforms

Background in software development or platform engineering with focus on automation and quality

Experience participating in incident response or system troubleshooting activities

What I need to show

Own it

Take ownership of assigned platform components and features across data infrastructure, ensuring they work reliably and proactively monitoring for issues within your scope of responsibility

Deliver on your commitments to the team and platform users, completing tasks within agreed timelines and communicating early when you need support or face blockers

Maintain high standards for your infrastructure code and pipelines, implementing tests, creating documentation, and responding constructively to code review feedback to ensure quality

Don’t walk past problems you can fix, addressing technical issues within your capability in data platforms and escalating appropriately when support from senior engineers is needed

Make it better

Look for ways to improve the platform capabilities you work on, suggesting optimizations for performance, cost, reliability, or user experience based on your observations and measurements

Contribute to better developer and data scientist experience by creating clear documentation, reusable infrastructure modules, and helpful automation that make it easier for teams to work effectively

Focus on user impact in your work, understanding how the platform features you build affect data engineers, data scientists, and analysts, and seeking to improve their experience

Identify inefficiencies in platform workflows and operational processes, proposing improvements and learning from senior engineers about better approaches and practices

Work collaboratively with diverse users including data engineers, data scientists, and analysts, seeking to understand their requirements and asking clarifying questions to ensure you implement solutions that meet their needs

Learn from senior Data Software Engineers with openness and curiosity, actively seeking feedback on your infrastructure code and implementations and applying guidance to develop your technical skills and judgment

Communicate clearly and honestly about your progress, challenges, and learning needs, building trust through transparency, reliability, and willingness to ask for help when needed

Support your teammates and platform users by being responsive to questions, sharing what you learn, troubleshooting issues with patience, and contributing positively to team culture through respectful and considerate interactions

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).