Lead Databricks Engineer

EPAM Systems; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

EPAM Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ES?

Life assurance

Income protection

Critical illness cover

Private medical insurance

Dental care

Employee Assistance Program

Pension plan

Cyclescheme

Techscheme

Season ticket loans

Free Wednesday lunch in-office

On-site massages

Regular social events

Learning and development opportunities

In-house training and coaching

Professional certifications

Discretionary annual bonus

Discretionary Long-Term Incentive (LTI

Job summary

EPAM Systems in London, hybrid role, seeks a Lead Databricks Engineer to design and lead enterprise-scale Azure and Databricks data platforms for advanced analytics and real-time processing. You will own platform architecture, governance, cost optimization, and ensure delivery of high-quality solutions in a complex data-driven environment.

You will lead architecture, enforce standards, optimize pipelines, mentor developers, and collaborate with senior stakeholders to align platform initiatives

Qualifications

• 8+ years of data engineering experience.
• 3+ years in a tech lead role.
• Enterprise-scale Databricks and Azure data platform expertise.
• Strong PySpark, Spark Structured Streaming and Delta Lake skills.
• Proficient Python and SQL, with performance tuning experience.
• Experience with data governance and observability frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture design for Azure Databricks workloads.
• Define platform standards with governance and security.
• Build and optimize streaming pipelines with Delta Live Tables.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate requirements.
• Drive performance, cost optimization and monitoring.
• Provide engineering leadership across delivery and production support.
• Mentor developers and establish best practices.
• Participate in technical decisions for scalability and maintainability.
• Ensure observability and QA for critical pipelines.
• Engage stakeholders on platform strategy.

Skills

Data engineering

Leadership

Communication

Databricks

PySpark

Spark Structured Streaming

Delta Lake

Python

SQL

Azure

Observability

Tools

Databricks platform

Azure Data Platform

Azure DevOps

Job description

We’re looking for a Lead Databricks Engineer to join our team in London, UK in a hybrid working mode. This role involves designing and leading enterprise-scale Azure and Databricks data platforms to enable advanced analytics and real-time processing capabilities. You will be responsible for platform architecture, governance, cost optimization and ensuring delivery of high-quality solutions that meet critical business needs in a complex, data-driven environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture design and implementation of scalable solutions on Azure Databricks
• Define and enforce platform standards, ensuring compliance with data governance and security policies
• Build and optimize Databricks streaming workloads, including Structured Streaming and Delta Live Tables
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate requirements into robust technical solutions
• Drive platform performance tuning, cost optimization and monitoring strategies for cloud workloads
• Provide leadership across the full engineering lifecycle, including solution delivery and production support
• Mentor and guide developers, establishing best practices for data engineering on Azure and Databricks
• Participate in technical decision-making and review designs for scalability and maintainability
• Implement observability for critical pipelines and maintain quality assurance standards
• Engage directly with stakeholders to ensure alignment on strategic platform initiatives

Requirements

• Minimum 8+ years of experience in data engineering, including 3+ years in a tech lead capacity
• Strong hands-on expertise in Databricks for enterprise-scale workloads
• Proficiency in PySpark, Spark Structured Streaming, and Delta Lake
• Solid programming skills in Python and demonstrated SQL performance optimization experience
• Deep understanding of Azure Data Platform services and cloud-native engineering patterns
• Proven experience implementing data governance, quality management and observability frameworks
• Ability to manage complex data pipelines for batch and streaming use cases in mission-critical environments
• Strong communication and leadership skills to work with distributed teams and senior stakeholders

Nice to have

• Knowledge of Delta Live Tables (DLT) and advanced workflows in Databricks
• Familiarity with CI/CD for data engineering using GitHub or Azure DevOps
• Experience designing infrastructure-as-code solutions for Azure environments
• Understanding of data mesh or lakehouse principles for large-scale architectures
• Background in financial trading or capital markets data domains

We offer

• EPAM Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
• Protection benefits including life assurance, income protection and critical illness cover
• Private medical insurance and dental care
• Employee Assistance Program
• Competitive group pension plan
• Cyclescheme, Techscheme and season ticket loans
• Various perks such as free Wednesday lunch in-office, on-site massages and regular social events
• Learning and development opportunities including in-house training and coaching, professional certifications, and courses
• If otherwise eligible, participation in the discretionary annual bonus program
• If otherwise eligible and hired into a qualifying level, participation in the discretionary Long-Term Incentive (LTI) Program