Lead Data Engineer – AI Startup | Equity & Impact

Understanding Recruitment; Greater London; On-site; GBP 144,000 - 176,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Understanding Recruitment is seeking a Lead Data Engineer for an AI startup in London. You will own data architecture and build scalable infrastructure to support a rapidly growing AI platform. This senior role offers direct collaboration with founders and a chance to shape the data engineering function from the ground up.

The ideal candidate has strong Python and SQL skills, plus experience with Spark, Airflow, or Kafka, and a track record in data pipelines and distributed systems.

Qualifications

• Strong experience with Python.
• Excellent SQL knowledge.
• Experience with Apache technologies (Spark, Airflow or Kafka).
• Proven experience designing and building scalable data pipelines.
• Strong understanding of data architecture and distributed systems.
• Experience working within a start-up or fast-paced environment would be beneficial.

Responsibilities

• Own the company data architecture and design scalable data infrastructure.
• Build and optimize data pipelines to support the AI platform.
• Collaborate with founders and engineering teams to shape data strategy.
• Drive data governance and quality across the stack.
• Champion best practices in distributed systems and reliability.

Skills

Python

SQL

Data architecture

Distributed systems

Tools

Apache Spark

Apache Airflow

Kafka

Job description

Understanding Recruitment is seeking a Lead Data Engineer for an AI startup in London. You will own data architecture and build scalable infrastructure to support a rapidly growing AI platform. This senior role offers direct collaboration with founders and a chance to shape the data engineering function from the ground up.

The ideal candidate has strong Python and SQL skills, plus experience with Spark, Airflow, or Kafka, and a track record in data pipelines and distributed systems.