Principal Data Engineer

RELX INC; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading data and analytics firm in Greater London is looking for a Principal Data Engineer to work on their innovative Search and AI Platform. The successful candidate will design and build scalable applications, create data pipelines, and develop cloud infrastructure in AWS. Ideal candidates should have strong experience in software engineering, ETL, Spark, and be proficient in Java and Python. The role allows for flexible working arrangements and offers a comprehensive benefits package.

Benefits

Comprehensive Pension Plan

Home, office, or commuting allowance

Generous vacation entitlement

Flexible working hours

Employee Assistance Program (global)

Qualifications

• Strong experience delivering server-side applications in a commercial environment.
• Good experience with ETL, Spark, and Airflow.
• Excellent programming skills with Java and Python.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable applications following best practices.
• Create data pipelines for bulk data ingestion.
• Build cloud infrastructure in AWS for hosting services.

Skills

Commercial software engineering

ETL

Spark

Airflow

Programming in Java

Programming in Python

Tools

AWS

Database systems

Job description

Principal Data Engineer

About the team:

The Search and AI Platform is Elsevier’s agentic data platform, which powers products such as Scopus, ScienceDirect, and our next-generation LLM‑powered research systems.

The platform utilises agentic services to interrogate our rich knowledge graphs, search and recommendation systems, and our unparalleled collection of research data, delivering insights to the scientific community that enable them to collaborate more effectively, work smarter, and produce high‑quality research more efficiently.

About the role

We are seeking an innovative and passionate principal data engineer to collaborate with our teams in building and enhancing our platform, delivering intelligent and scalable solutions that create real value for our clients.

Key responsibilities

• Designing, prototyping, and building robust and scalable applications, following clean code, secure and best‑practice software engineering principles.
• Working with technologies including Python, Java (Spring Boot), Spark, Airflow, and various database technologies like search, graph, RDBMS and key value stores.
• Creating data pipelines (ELT and ETL) for bulk data ingestion into various database systems, ensuring scalability, cost and performance optimisation.
• Working with data engineering and warehousing technologies like Data Lake, Delta Lake, Iceberg and similar standards.
• Generating embeddings for ingestion with the latest models at scale.
• Building cloud infrastructure in AWS to host and monitor the services, automating common tasks.

Requirements

• A passionate engineer with strong commercial software engineering experience delivering server‑side applications.
• Good experience in ETL, Spark, Airflow.
• Experience in Database systems.
• Excellent programming skills with Java and Python.
• An advocate of best‑practices for rapid development of quality software, including clean code, architectural design patterns, CI/CD.
• Comfortable learning new technologies, languages, and tools on the job, to ensure that the product is not left behind in a rapidly evolving ecosystem.
• An inclusive, positive, collaborative mindset and a desire to deliver real business value to our customers.

Nice to have

• An inclusive, positive, collaborative mindset and a desire to deliver real business value to our customers.

Why join us?

Join our team and contribute to a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence. If you are ready to advance your career and make a significant impact, we encourage you to apply.

Working for you

We know that your well‑being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. These are some of the benefits we are delighted to offer:

• Comprehensive Pension Plan
• Home, office, or commuting allowance.
• Generous vacation entitlement and option for sabbatical leave.
• Maternity, Paternity, Adoption and Family Care leave.
• Flexible working hours.
• Personal Choice budget.
• Internal communities and networks.
• Various employee discounts.
• Recruitment introduction reward.
• Employee Assistance Program (global).

Equal Opportunity

We are an equal opportunity employer: qualified applicants are considered for and treated during employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, disability status, protected veteran status, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

EEO Rights

USA Job Seekers: EEO Know Your Rights.