Lead Data Engineer (AI)

Arden University; Coventry; Remote; GBP 50,000; Full time

Job description

Salary: £50000 per annum

Employment type: Permanent

Hours per week: 37

Reporting into: Head of Data Product Development

Department: Analysis, Insights and Performance

This role operates primarily on a remote working arrangement that will require little to no travel into our Coventry head office. Our working model arrangements are a non-contractual benefit so please note that an Arden work location is added to our employment contracts.

About Arden University:

We are an aspirational and multi-award-winning university, delivering rapid growth with ambitious plans to disrupt the HE sector through our passion for innovation and digital education. Our vision is to become the first-choice university for career-focused lifelong learners worldwide, ensuring that everyone, everywhere can access higher education.

About our Department:

The Analysis, Insights & Performance department at Arden University plays a vital role in driving data-driven decisions. By providing valuable insights, monitoring performance, and promoting innovation, the team supports the university's mission to enhance student outcomes and drive continuous improvement.

About the Opportunity - Lead Data Engineer

As a lead data Engineer within the data practice at Arden University you will lead a product delivery squad to develop, optimise, and oversee our ML and AI data architecture, tools, and pipelines. You will own accountability and authority of our ML Factory, algorithms, and AI products, and you’ll lead the squads appointed to developing the products.

In this role you will engineer solutions that allow for the efficient and reliable handling of large scales of data, enabling data-driven decision making across our university. You will work closely with data scientists, analysts, and our business teams to ensure data flows seamlessly through the organisation and is accessible for analytical purposes.

As a lead data engineer, you will be designing and implementing scalable data models, cleaning and validating data for accuracy and completeness, building ML and AI models, and automating data processing and integration tasks. Your goal is to ensure that our data products support our analytics and data science initiatives, empowering Arden to extract valuable insights from complex data in a secure and compliant manner.

About You:

We would like to hear from applicants who have:

Essential requirements:

• Experience of one or more programming languages such as Python, R, and SQL.
• An understanding of database theory and design. Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases.
• Familiarity with big data technologies and ecosystems such as Microsoft Synapse/Fabric, Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, and others.
• Skills in machine learning and AI technologies and methodologies.
• Knowledge of data pipeline tools such as Data Factory, Airflow, and NiFi.
• Knowledge of version control systems such as Git.
• Ability to analyse problems and design better solutions.
• Strong communication skills to collaborate with team members and to explain complex concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• A familiarity with agile project management processes such as Scrum.

Desirable requirements:

• Formal Data & Analytics qualification e.g. Certified Analytics Professional (CAP), Azure Data Engineer/Scientist Associate
• Experience in the use of data and analytics tooling within Microsoft Azure.
• Knowledge of machine learning algorithms and data science techniques.
• Experienced in implementing CI/CD pipelines for data workflows using Azure DevOps and Git.
• Built RAG-based systems by linking language models to vector databases for more accurate, data-driven responses.
• Skilled in dimensional modelling and Kimball methodology for analytics workloads.

Why Arden:

At Arden, you will become a part of a passionate and dedicated team who are committed to removing unnecessary barriers to learning and making education more accessible. Our people work hard to ensure our students journeys are the best they can possibly be, as such we want to reward our people with fantastic benefits. Employees benefit from:

• 30 days holiday + bank holidays on-top, and even a Christmas closure!
• A generous Aviva pension plan, company contributions starting from 7%
• SimplyHealth plan option
• Private Medical Insurance coverage (applies to certain job roles)
• Access to Perkbox benefits
• Study any Arden course for free, with a discount for all family and friends
• Plus, other excellent benefits
• Our ‘Golden Ticket’ which allows you to gift anyone in your life a free Arden education

Our Values:

Stand out, Progressive, Accessible, Resourceful, Kindness, reflect who we are as an institution, a team and as individuals. If they also reflect you and you are excited by the chance to be the driving, creative force within a growing business, we want to hear from you.

Closing Date: Tuesday 29th April (midnight)

We reserve the right to close this vacancy before the specified closing date should we receive sufficient applications or in order to respond to business needs. In order to avoid missing an opportunity to apply please submit your application as early as possible.

If you are a current Arden student or have an upcoming course with us, you are not eligible to apply for Student Experience roles due to a conflict of interest related to system access.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion:

Arden University is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. This means that if you have a disability, as defined by the Disability Equality Act 2010, you may be guaranteed an interview if you meet the essential criteria for the role.

If you wish to be considered under this scheme, you can indicate via the application form below. By doing so, you are also consenting for this information to be shared with the hiring team. For more details on what qualifies as a disability under the Disability Equality Act 2010, please refer to the guidance here.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. Therefore, we make sure that our recruitment and selection processes never discriminate based upon people's age, disability, gender, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or other personal circumstances, and actively welcome applications from all groups.

Sponsorship statement:

Please be aware that some roles may not meet the points requirement for a sponsored Skilled Worker visa under the points-based immigration system. However, we welcome applications from candidates who do not currently have the right to work in the UK but may be eligible for a visa through an alternative route.