Principal Data Engineer

Chroma Recruitment; Manchester; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Chroma Recruitment is seeking a hands-on Lead Data Engineer in Manchester to own and evolve our data platforms. You will stay hands-on in code while leading a small team, turning business needs into a practical plan.

You will build and run ingestion, orchestration, the BigQuery data warehouse, DBT tooling and Python data services on GCP, with CI/CD, IaC, access controls and cost awareness. You’ll collaborate with Engineering and Data Science to deliver production grade data products.

Qualifications

• Strong SQL and Python producing tested, maintainable pipelines.
• Cloud data warehouse expertise with dbt and orchestration.
• Analytics data modelling with dimensional design and shared datasets.
• Ownership of a production data platform on a major cloud (GCP).
• Security and GDPR best practices; least‑privilege access.

Responsibilities

• Own data platforms end‑to‑end while remaining hands‑on in code.
• Ingest, orchestrate, and manage the BigQuery warehouse and DBT tooling.
• Collaborate with Engineering and AI/Data Science to meet data needs.
• Prioritise business requests into a roadmap backlog.

Skills

SQL

Python

Data modelling

Leadership

Code review

Tools

BigQuery

dbt

Terraform

Kubernetes

Airbyte

Composer

Cloud Run/Functions

CI/CD

Job description

Help shape the next chapter of our data capability. We’re looking for a hands‑on Lead Data Engineer to own our data platforms: dependable, well‑modelled and easy to build on. This is an opportunity to own the data platforms that power analytics across the business and give a small team the tools to do its best work.

What You'll Be Responsible For

• As the Lead Data Engineer, you’ll own all data platforms while staying hands‑on in the code. You’ll work alongside Engineering and AI/Data Science, lead and develop the data team, and turn business needs into a realistic plan
• Build and run ingestion, orchestration, the BigQuery warehouse, DBT tooling and Python data services on GCP, including CI/CD, infrastructure as code, access and cloud costs
• Work alongside Engineering and AI/Data Science to provide the data they need, and fix data issues at source rather than patching them in the warehouse
• Turn business and analytics requests into one prioritised backlog and roadmap
• Review SQL, Python and dbt code, keep tests and contracts strong, and make every production change testable and reversible
• Lead and develop the team

Skills and Experience

• Strong SQL and Python, building tested, maintainable production pipelines and data services.
• Hands‑on experience with a cloud data warehouse, dbt (or equivalent) and workflow orchestration, including incremental loading, safe reruns and performance tuning.
• Data modelling for analytics and BI: dimensional design, semantic layers and well‑documented shared datasets.
• Ownership of a production data platform on a major cloud: deployment, infrastructure as code, permissions, monitoring, incident recovery and cost.
• Sound security and data privacy practice, including GDPR and least‑privilege access.
• Turning stakeholder needs into a prioritised backlog, and reconciling figures where finance reporting depends on them.
• Line management or mentoring of engineers, and technical leadership through code review and clear documentation.
• Tech stack includes GCP, BigQuery, DBT, Python and Terraform.
• GCP experience with BigQuery, Composer and Cloud Run or Cloud Functions, including cost optimisation.
• Airbyte or similar ingestion tools
• CDC, Kubernetes and data observability tools such as Elementary.
• Working with data scientists to put ML models or pipelines into production.