Principal Data Engineer

ENSEK; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday

Private healthcare

Pension 5% matched

Team events

Volunteer days

Remote‑first with London/Nottingham

Job summary

ENSEK is hiring a Principal Data Engineer to provide technical leadership across our data ecosystem, spanning Data Platform, Data Products and ML/AI Platform. You will steer the move to a pragmatic data mesh, enabling domain teams to own trustworthy, discoverable data products powering decisions and customer solutions.

You'll collaborate with Principal Engineers, Product leaders and Data Protection specialists to set architectural standards, and foster a strong data engineering community across

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in Data Engineering with architecture leadership across multiple teams.
• Proven track record at Principal/Staff Engineer level or equivalent.
• Deep expertise in modern data platforms and lakehouse architectures on AWS.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical vision, architecture and roadmap for ENSEK's data ecosystem.
• Lead the introduction of a pragmatic data mesh across the organisation.
• Drive architectural decisions through ADRs and governance standards.
• Shape self‑service data platform with clear golden paths for teams.
• Define CI/CD, data quality, observability, lineage and metadata practices.
• Design secure, scalable data sharing via APIs, streams and open formats.
• Mentor Staff/Senior Engineers and grow a data engineering community.

Skills

Data mesh architecture

Technical leadership

Cloud data platforms

Event-driven design

SQL and distributed systems

Data contracts

Tools

Kafka

Kinesis

Schema Registry

Avro

Apache Iceberg

Job description

About ENSEK
ENSEK builds the cloud‑native SaaS software that’s transforming how energy retailers operate, innovate and manage at scale.

We help retailers lower operating costs, improve billing accuracy for consumers, and enhance customer experience through automation and AI‑driven insight, all underpinned by modern, cloud‑native architecture.

ENSEK is at an exciting inflection point as we scale at pace towards new international horizons. If you’re driven by solving complex, real‑world problems and want to build modern technology that accelerates the global energy transition, you’ll feel right at home with us.

About the role

We're looking for a Principal Data Engineer to provide technical leadership across ENSEK's data ecosystem, spanning our Data Platform, Data Products, Margin Intelligence capabilities, and ML/AI Platform.

This is a highly influential role where you'll shape the future of data architecture at ENSEK. You'll lead our evolution towards a pragmatic data mesh model, enabling domain teams to take ownership of trustworthy, discoverable, and governed data products that power internal decision making, customer-facing solutions, and AI-driven innovation.

Working closely with Principal Engineers, Engineering Managers, Product leaders and Data Protection specialists, you'll define the architectural standards, platforms and practices that make data a first-class citizen in how ENSEK builds software.

Key responsibilities:

• Own the technical vision, architecture and roadmap for ENSEK's data ecosystem, supporting our domain-driven architecture and ongoing platform decomposition.

• Lead the introduction of a pragmatic data mesh approach, enabling teams to produce, govern and consume data products consistently across the organisation.

• Drive key architectural decisions through technical leadership and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs).

• Establish standards for event‑driven data architectures, schema governance, data lifecycle management and data product ownership.

• Shape ENSEK's self‑service data platform by creating golden paths that simplify adoption across engineering teams.

• Define and implement standards for CI/CD, data quality, observability, lineage, metadata management and cost attribution.

• Design secure and scalable mechanisms for sharing data with customers and partners through APIs, event streams, open table formats and emerging AI‑driven access patterns.

• Partner with engineering, product and governance stakeholders to embed data ownership, security classification and compliance into platform design.

• Provide hands‑on technical leadership on the most complex engineering challenges.

• Mentor and develop Staff and Senior Engineers while helping to grow a strong data engineering community of practice across ENSEK.

Key outcomes:

You’ll know you're making an impact when:

• Domain teams are producing discoverable, schema‑governed data products with clear ownership and accountability.

• Trusted data products are available across the organisation with published contracts, defined SLOs and automated quality controls.

• Customer and partner data access is provided through governed, engineered interfaces rather than bespoke extracts and direct platform access.

• Teams can easily discover, understand and trust data through comprehensive cataloguing, lineage and business context.

• Data platform adoption increases through well‑defined engineering standards and self‑service capabilities.

• Cost, performance and usage are visible at both domain and data product level.

• Ad hoc reporting and manual data requests continue to reduce as platform capabilities mature.

Experience required:

We're looking for someone who combines deep technical expertise with strategic thinking and the ability to influence across multiple teams.

You'll bring:

• Extensive experience in Data Engineering with a strong track record of leading architecture and technical strategy across multiple teams or domains.

• Experience operating at Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer or equivalent technical leadership level.

• Deep expertise designing and operating modern data platforms and lakehouse architectures on a major cloud provider, ideally AWS.

• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including programming, distributed systems and SQL.

• Hands‑on experience with event‑driven architectures, event streaming platforms and schema governance technologies such as Kafka, Kinesis, Schema Registry and Avro.

• Experience implementing data mesh, data product or domain‑oriented data ownership models.

• Strong knowledge of data contracts, metadata management, cataloguing, data lineage and data quality frameworks.

• Experience building and governing data platforms that balance self‑service capabilities with effective controls and standards.

• A strong understanding of data security, privacy, classification and access management principles.

• Experience sharing data externally through open and portable technologies such as Apache Iceberg or similar open table formats.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence senior technical and business leaders.

Nice to have

• Experience supporting Machine Learning and AI platforms.

• Experience with MLOps and AI‑driven product development.

• Knowledge of the energy industry or other highly regulated sectors.

• Experience building platforms that support agentic AI, MCP servers or emerging AI consumption patterns.

Company Benefits

• 25 days’ holiday + bank holidays

• Option to buy or sell 5 extra annual leave days per year

• Vitality Health Insurance, including private healthcare, virtual GP access, mental‑health support and wellbeing perks (50% off gym memberships‑Virgin Active, Nuffield, PureGym)

• Pensionwith5% matched contribution

• Regular team‑wide and company‑wide events

• 2 volunteering days per year to give back

• Remote‑first working environment with offices in London and Nottingham