Lead Data Engineer - AI-Driven Data Platform Leader

VIQU IT; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Learning budget

Fast-track growth

Competitive salary

Job summary

VIQU IT is seeking a Lead Data Engineer in London to define data platforms and lead a small team of engineers. You will own end-to-end data pipelines and partner with Product, Data Science, and Client Delivery to deliver scalable solutions.

The role blends hands-on development with people leadership, setting standards, and driving AI integration within the engineering workflow. A STEM degree and 5+ years in data engineering are required.

Qualifications

• First-class STEM degree from a prestigious university.
• 5+ years in Data Engineering/Platform roles, 2+ years in lead or senior capacity.
• Proven line management experience — not just technical leadership.
• Track record of building or improving engineering processes and team structures.
• Expertise in SQL pipelines, Python orchestration, dimensional modelling, and star/snowflake schemas.
• Experience with cloud data infrastructure, CI/CD automation, and metadata frameworks.
• Comfortable working across product, AI, and client delivery teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the Data Engineering function: standards, tooling, and delivery processes.
• Manage, mentor, and develop a team of data engineers including performance and development plans.
• Lead recruitment and be the engineering voice in cross-functional planning.
• Design and build high-performance ETL/ELT pipelines across operational, analytical, and AI data layers.
• Lead schema design, model validation, scalable partitioning, and metadata-driven SQL frameworks.
• Hands-on ownership of the most complex implementation work.
• Define and evolve data models powering analytics and AI features.

Skills

Data engineering

Lead experience

Line management

Engineering processes

SQL pipelines

Python orchestration

Dimensional modelling

Star/snowflake schema

Cloud data infra

CI/CD automation

Metadata frameworks

Cross-functional work

Education

STEM degree

Tools

Azure DevOps

GitHub Actions

PostgreSQL

Azure

Git

Job description

VIQU IT is seeking a Lead Data Engineer in London to define data platforms and lead a small team of engineers. You will own end-to-end data pipelines and partner with Product, Data Science, and Client Delivery to deliver scalable solutions.

The role blends hands-on development with people leadership, setting standards, and driving AI integration within the engineering workflow. A STEM degree and 5+ years in data engineering are required.