Principal Data Engineer

Morson Group; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 160,000 - 209,000; Full time

Job summary

Morson Edge is partnering with a leading investment management firm to hire a Principal Data Engineer in Manchester. The role blends hands-on engineering with technical leadership to shape a modern data platform using Snowflake and a growing data tech ecosystem.

You will design scalable data solutions, build robust ELT pipelines, guide governance and data democratisation, and enable advanced analytics and AI. Hybrid working arranged, on-site four days per week.

Qualifications

• Experience with Snowflake data platform and governance
• Strong background in ELT/data pipelines design and optimization
• Knowledge of data privacy, security, and compliance requirements
• Experience with cloud infrastructure as code and modern data tooling
• Familiarity with agile software/data engineering practices

Responsibilities

• Design scalable data platform solutions using Snowflake and related technologies
• Build and optimize end-to-end ELT pipelines for performance and reliability
• Shape data strategy, engineering standards, and governance practices
• Support adoption of analytics, AI and ML capabilities
• Develop Infrastructure as Code alongside Cloud Engineering
• Ensure compliance with privacy and security requirements
• Collaborate in an Agile environment and drive platform improvements
• Keep up with emerging technologies and drive continuous platform improvement

Skills

Snowflake

Snowpark

Python

SQL

dbt

CI/CD

Agile

Tools

GitHub Actions

TeamCity

Artifactory

Job description

Principal Data Engineer

12 Month Contract

Inside IR35 - Up to £1000 per day (DOE)

Manchester, UK - Hybrid - 4 days a week onsite

Morson Edge are partnered with a leading investment management firm who are looking for an experienced Principal Data Engineer to join their established Data Platform team and play a key role in shaping the organisation’s strategic data platform.

You’ll combine hands-on engineering with technical leadership, helping define how data is ingested, transformed, governed and made accessible across the business. Snowflake is at the heart of the platform, alongside a growing ecosystem of modern data technologies.

The Role

You’ll be responsible for:

• Designing and delivering scalable data platform solutions using Snowflake and complementary technologies.
• Building and optimising end-to-end ELT/data pipelines, with a focus on performance, reliability and maintainability.
• Helping shape data strategy, engineering standards and best practices around governance and data democratisation.
• Supporting the adoption of advanced analytics, AI and machine learning capabilities.
• Developing Infrastructure as Code alongside Cloud Engineering.
• Ensuring solutions meet data privacy, security and compliance requirements.
• Working collaboratively within an Agile environment and across the wider business.
• Keeping up with emerging technologies and driving continuous improvement across the platform.

What Theyre Looking For

Strong experience with:

• Snowflake - Warehouses, Streams/Tasks, Snowpipe, Snowpark, UDFs/Stored Procedures, Time Travel and Cloning.
• Snowpark and end-to-end pipeline development. Experience with PySpark, Polars or Dask is also valuable.
• Python, including testing, build tooling and engineering best practices.
• SQL, including Snowflake-optimised SQL.
• dbt, including Jinja templating, or equivalent transformation frameworks.
• CI/CD, ideally with GitHub Actions, TeamCity or Artifactory.
• Agile software/data engineering environments and modern engineering practices.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Docker, Java/Scala, Kafka, Pulsar, Azure Event Hub, Collibra, Apache Iceberg, Apache Arrow, PySpark or AI engineering technologies such as Snowflake AI, LangChain, LlamaIndex or Pinecone would be advantageous.

This is a great opportunity to join a collaborative team and have genuine influence over the development of a modern data platform, with exposure across data engineering, analytics and AI.

*Only candidates who live within a reasonable commuting distance from Manchester will be considered*

*Candidates must reside in the UK and have full working rights, sponsorship is NOT available*