Principal Data Engineer

Aegon UK; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 57,000 - 87,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in the financial sector is seeking a Principal Data Engineer to lead the design and development of innovative cloud-first data solutions. This role involves collaboration across teams to deliver high-quality, scalable data solutions while promoting best engineering practices. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in cloud technologies and a strong ability to mentor and lead teams. Aegon UK offers a competitive salary and a range of benefits to support employee well-being.

Benefits

Non-contributory pension

Discretionary bonus

36 days leave per year

Private medical cover

Life assurance

Critical illness cover

Qualifications

• Experience in a Senior, Lead, or Principal Data Engineer role.
• Strong track record of delivering cloud-based data platforms.
• Proven ability to lead and mentor engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and development of cloud-first data solutions in AWS.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams for effective data solutions.
• Establish coding standards and promote quality assurance practices.

Skills

Team Leadership

Cloud-based Data Platforms

Data Engineering Principles

Python

SQL

Tools

AWS Glue

Terraform

PostgreSQL

Tableau

Job description

Job Description Summary

Job Description

Principal Data Engineer

Permanent

Location: Edinburgh or Witham (We believe in the power of in-person collaboration, and our hybrid model requires colleagues to be in the office a minimum of 40% of their time)

Salary: A competitive salary from £57,600 - £86,400,depending on the experience you can bring

Closing date: 30th May 2025

We’re a company of ambitious, collaborative problem-solvers who get things done – we’re looking for like-minded people to join us.

We help people live their best lives. We help them with the big stuff, for the moments that matter: Pensions, Savings, Investments. At Aegon, we strive in creating a diverse organisation that plays a meaningful role in driving greater equity, inclusion and belonging.

Data is crucial to our organisation — it shapes how we operate every day and is fundamental to achieving our goals. As we continue to evolve, our data function is undergoing a transformation. We're reimagining how we work, incrementally improving our data architecture, strengthening our engineering practices, expanding our capabilities, and driving innovation across the business.

We are hiring for multiple Principal Data Engineers in Edinburgh or Witham. In this role, you will lead the design and development of complex cloud-first data solutions in AWS, ensuring high-quality, scalable code and engineering excellence. You will collaborate with data engineers, product managers, analysts, BI engineers, and data users to deliver innovative, self-service data solutions. You’ll also work with senior stakeholders to shape the roadmap and backlog for the data capability team, aligning with strategic business objectives. Your responsibilities will span the entire data lifecycle, from design to production — ensuring solutions meet defined standards.

Key Responsibilities:

• Team Leadership: Provide technical guidance, foster continuous learning, and take ownership of team capabilities and deliverables.
• Architect and Build Scalable Data Solutions: Design and develop scalable data solutions using AWS-native technologies (DMS, Glue, RDS, Lambda, Python, PySpark, Athena, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, Kinesis, SQS, SNS) and BI tools (Tableau, Power BI, QuickSight).
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Working closely with cross-functional teams to gather business requirements, designing effective data solutions, and ensuring timely and high-quality project delivery.
• Champion Engineering Best Practices: Establish coding standards, conduct code reviews, and promote quality assurance practices.
• Ensuring Data Quality and Reliability: Develop and maintain automated testing frameworks for data pipelines.
• Platform Design: Architect data platform solutions aligned with AUK Architecture team standards.

We’d love to hear from you if you have:

• Experience in a Senior, Lead, or Principal Data Engineer role.
• Strong track record of delivering cloud-based data platforms, data lakes, BI, and advanced analytics solutions.
• Deep understanding of data architecture principles and data modelling techniques in modern serverless cloud environments.
• Hands-on experience with Python, PySpark, SQL, and infrastructure-as-code tools (AWS CloudFormation, Terraform, AWS CLI).
• Extensive expertise in AWS services and architecture, including EC2, S3, DMS, Lambda, API Gateway, AWS Glue, and QuickSight or similar in other Cloud environments like GCP / Azure.
• Proficiency in building scalable, serverless data pipelines using cloud-native ETL tools, such as AWS Glue, Azure Data Factory, or Google Dataflow.
• Experience with SQL and NoSQL cloud databases.
• Strong grasp of data engineering principles and best practices.
• Ability to implement robust data quality controls and monitoring frameworks.
• Knowledge of data security best practices.
• Proven ability to lead and mentor engineering teams.
• Skilled in translating business requirements into technical specifications.

What’s in it for you?

• A non-contributory pension between 8%-12%
• A discretionary bonus, depending on personal and company performance
• 36 days leave per year (including bank holidays, pro-rated for part-time)

We also offer private medical cover, life assurance, critical illness cover, enhanced parental leave and a variety of lifestyle benefits to help our employees live their best lives, including retail discount vouchers, cycle2work scheme, subsidised restaurant and online GP appointments. To find out more about what to expect at Aegon click here .

We're looking for talented individuals who are ready to make a real impact. If you're excited about new challenges and want to work with a team that values your skills, apply today!

The legal bits

We’ll need you to confirm you have the right to work in the UK. If we offer you a job and you accept, there are some checks we need to complete before you can start with us. This will include a credit and criminal record check, as well as providing satisfactory references.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their age, disability, race, religion/belief, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.