Principal Data Engineer

ITV; London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Principal Data Engineer to lead data engineering initiatives. This pivotal role involves defining data processes, mentoring a team, and making key technical decisions. You'll work with cutting-edge technologies to build scalable data solutions, ensuring compliance with industry standards. The position offers an exciting opportunity to make a significant impact in a collaborative environment, where your expertise will help shape the future of data engineering. Join a team that values innovation and is at the forefront of the digital transformation in broadcasting.

Qualifications

• Strong leadership skills in a data engineering environment.
• Proficiency in designing and building data products using Databricks, Hadoop, Spark.
• Experience in developing data pipelines for large data volumes.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain strong data engineering capabilities through mentoring.
• Design and implement process improvements to optimize data delivery.
• Lead architectural activities related to data engineering.

Skills

Leadership in Data Engineering

Management Experience

Databricks

Hadoop

Spark

Data Pipeline Development

Production-Grade Code

CI/CD Platforms

Apache Spark

Cloud Platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud)

Data Modeling

SQL Optimization

Tools

Tableau

AWS QuickSight

Looker

ThoughtSpot

Job description

The Role

The team

Millions of people use the products we build. We're customer-focused, data-informed, and have a product mindset, utilizing state-of-the-art cloud-first technology. We iterate and evolve daily. In a fast-changing world, our Technology teams lead the transformation to a digital-first business. There's never been a more exciting time to join us.

As part of the Advanced Advertising Technology team, our focus is on data analytics, monetization, and financial governance. Joining us means entering a fun working environment with opportunities to learn, grow, and make a real difference. We're small enough for your impact to be felt in the business, yet large enough to reach millions of people.

The role

As a Principal Data Engineer, you will be recognized as a technical authority and champion of data engineering delivery. You will define and nurture our data engineering processes, own initiatives to improve our capabilities and culture, and support team members in achieving their potential. You are expected to work independently and autonomously.

You will guide and lead your team in adopting CT&C's engineering best practices and collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement scalable and secure data solutions.

This leadership role involves some hands-on work and includes reporting duties for a small team of data engineers. You will contribute to refining and improving CT&C's engineering practices.

The role includes but is not limited to:

• Building and maintaining a strong data engineering capability through recruiting, mentoring, and performance management.
• Making key technical decisions regarding platforms, tools, and development languages, and overseeing their governance.
• Designing and implementing process improvements to automate manual tasks, optimize data delivery, and enhance infrastructure scalability.
• Serving as an authority on underlying data sets within your team's data products and promoting knowledge sharing via ITV guilds.
• Supporting budget and forecasting processes for data engineering.
• Owning and delivering scalable, secure data pipelines.
• Collaborating with commercial teams and data product owners to define requirements and visualization needs.
• Leading architectural activities within ITV related to data engineering.
• Introducing design standards and review processes.
• Addressing design and technological issues proactively.
• Monitoring and optimizing data pipelines for performance and reliability.
• Working with QA to define automated quality checks and reporting outcomes.
• Organizing and executing data governance practices to ensure compliance with privacy and security regulations.
• Ensuring data products meet observability standards and promoting long-term design philosophies to reduce incidents.
• Supporting the team in fulfilling its ways of working duties.

Skills you'll need (minimum criteria)

• Strong leadership skills in a data engineering environment.
• Management experience in career development, delivery, and skills assessment.
• Proficiency in designing and building data products using Databricks, Hadoop, Spark.
• Experience in developing and implementing data pipelines for large data volumes, with a solid understanding of data engineering concepts, ETL, and data integration.
• Ability to produce production-grade code with automated testing.
• Experience with CI/CD platforms (e.g., Github Actions, Jenkins).
• Knowledge of distributed computing frameworks like Apache Spark.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and services (S3, Redshift, BigQuery).
• Understanding of data modeling, database systems, and SQL optimization techniques.

Other things we're looking for (key criteria)

• Knowledge of the UK broadcast industry & broadcast/OTT advertising market.
• Understanding of digital marketing and advertising industries.
• Leadership, inspiration, and influence skills to work towards common goals.
• Confidence, methodical decision-making, problem-solving, and strong communication skills.
• Self-motivation and industry trend awareness.
• Familiarity with data design techniques, experimental design, statistical modeling, and architecture disciplines like Data Mesh and Enterprise Architecture.
• Understanding of data governance, privacy, and security principles.
• Knowledge of data management tools such as data governance, quality, metadata, and master data management.
• Experience in designing data visualization solutions using tools like Tableau, AWS QuickSight, Looker, or ThoughtSpot.