Lead Data Engineer

Hexwired Recruitment Limited; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 115,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity options

Shape data architecture

Autonomy and influence

Job summary

Hexwired Recruitment Limited is partnering with an AI start-up to hire a Lead Data Engineer in London. You will own data architecture, build scalable pipelines for AI workloads, and shape the engineering team for rapid growth.

You will design real-time and batch data systems, optimise vector search pipelines, and collaborate with AI, backend and product teams to support model training and production. Hybrid work in London with strong ownership and technical influence.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of data engineering or backend experience.
• Strong Python development experience.
• Experience building distributed data pipelines and platforms.
• Excellent knowledge of PostgreSQL and NoSQL databases.
• Experience with vector databases (Qdrant, Milvus, pgvector).
• Familiarity with Spark, Airflow, Kafka, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Pandas, Polars.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable batch and real-time data pipelines.
• Develop ingestion, transformation and storage solutions for AI workloads.
• Build vector search and ML data pipelines.
• Ensure data reliability, governance, and observability across the platform.
• Collaborate with AI/backend/product teams for model training and deployment.
• Optimize large-scale datasets and database performance.
• Define engineering standards and mentor engineers.

Skills

5+ years experience

Python

Distributed data platforms

PostgreSQL

NoSQL databases

Vector databases

Apache Spark

Airflow

Kafka

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Pandas

Polars

Data modelling

Job description

Lead Data Engineer

Location: London (Hybrid)
Salary: 80,000-115,000

Hexwired has partnered with an exciting AI start-up developing an intelligent automation platform that is transforming the B2C service. They're now looking for a Lead Data Engineer to design and build the data infrastructure that will power the next generation of their AI platform.

As one of the first senior data hires, you'll take ownership of the company's data architecture, building scalable pipelines, real-time data processing systems and AI-ready infrastructure while helping shape the future engineering team.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable batch and real-time data pipelines.
• Develop data ingestion, transformation and storage solutions for operational and AI workloads.
• Build and optimise vector search, retrieval systems and ML data pipelines.
• Ensure data reliability, governance, monitoring and observability across the platform.
• Work closely with AI, backend and product teams to support model training, inference and product development.
• Optimise large-scale datasets and database performance.
• Help define engineering standards and mentor future data engineers.

Requirements

• 7+ years' experience in Data Engineering or Backend Engineering.
• Strong Python development experience.
• Experience building distributed data platforms and scalable pipelines.
• Excellent knowledge of PostgreSQL (or similar relational databases) and NoSQL databases.
• Experience with vector databases such as Qdrant, Milvus or pgvector.
• Familiarity with technologies such as Apache Spark, Airflow, Kafka, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Pandas and Polars.
• Strong understanding of data modelling, storage architecture and performance optimisation.

Desirable

• Experience working on AI or Machine Learning platforms.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP).
• JavaScript/Node.js experience.
• Event-driven architecture and stream processing experience.
• Previous experience within a high-growth start-up environment.

What's on Offer

• Competitive salary with equity options.
• The opportunity to shape the data architecture of a rapidly growing AI business.
• Work directly alongside founders and senior engineers.
• High levels of ownership, autonomy and technical influence.
• The chance to build technology that is transforming an entire industry.

If you're an experienced Data Engineer looking to play a key role in building the foundations of an innovative AI platform, we'd love to hear from you. Apply today by contacting Hexwired Recruitment.