Principal Data Engineer (Azure, PySpark, Databricks)

PEXA Group; York and North Yorkshire; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology firm in the property sector is seeking a Principal Data Engineer to lead the technical strategy for its data platform. This senior role involves designing scalable architectures, overseeing data pipelines, and ensuring data governance. The ideal candidate has extensive experience in PySpark, AWS, and Azure. You'll play a critical role in enabling data-driven decisions across the organization, mentoring engineers, and aligning data initiatives with business goals. Join us to help revolutionize the home moving experience.

Benefits

Great company culture

Open door policy

Diversity in roles

Qualifications

• Experience as a Data Engineer with technical leadership responsibilities.
• Broad cloud experience with both Azure and AWS.
• Deep expertise in PySpark and distributed data processing at scale.

Responsibilities

• Design and oversee scalable and secure architectures on Databricks.
• Lead the development of high performance data pipelines using PySpark and Databricks.
• Ensure compliance with GDPR and other regulatory frameworks.

Skills

Data Engineering

Technical Leadership

AWS

Azure

PySpark

Distributed Data Processing

Data Governance

SQL Optimization

Data Security

Mentoring

Tools

Databricks

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Principal Data Engineer to define, lead, and scale the technical strategy of our data platform. This is a senior, hands on leadership role at the intersection of architecture, governance, and engineering excellence, where you will shape how data is collected, processed, and delivered across the organisation. You will own the end to end quality, performance, and scalability of our data systems - from raw ingestion through to trusted datasets powering business critical analytics and reporting. This includes setting standards and influencing the strategic roadmap for data infrastructure. Our stack is built on both AWS and Azure, using Databricks across data domains and you will lead the evolution of this ecosystem to meet future business needs. You'll ensure that data is secure, compliant, discoverable, and business ready, enabling analysts, data scientists, and stakeholders to make confident, data driven decisions. This role is ideal for a highly technical leader who thrives at both the strategic and execution levels: someone equally comfortable defining architecture with executives, mentoring senior engineers, and optimising distributed pipelines at scale.

Responsibilities

• Design and oversee scalable, performant, and secure architectures on Databricks and distributed systems.
• Anticipate scaling challenges and ensure platforms are future proof.
• Lead the design and development of robust, high performance data pipelines using PySpark and Databricks.
• Define and ensure testing frameworks for data workflows.
• Ensure end to end data quality from raw ingestion to curated, trusted datasets powering analytics.
• Establish and enforce best practices for data governance, lineage, metadata, and security controls.
• Ensure compliance with GDPR and other regulatory frameworks.
• Act as a technical authority and mentor, guiding data engineers.
• Influence cross functional teams to align on data strategy, standards, and practices.
• Partner with product, engineering, and business leaders to prioritise and deliver high impact data initiatives.
• Build a culture of data trust, ensuring downstream analytics and reporting are always accurate and consistent.
• Evaluate and recommend emerging technologies where they add value to the ecosystem.

Qualifications

• Broad experience as a Data Engineer including technical leadership.
• Broad cloud experience, ideally both Azure and AWS.
• Deep expertise in PySpark and distributed data processing at scale.
• Extensive experience designing and optimising in Databricks.
• Advanced SQL optimisation and schema design for analytical workloads.
• Strong understanding of data security, privacy, and GDPR/PII compliance.
• Experience implementing and leading data governance frameworks.
• Proven experience leading the design and operation of a complex data platform.
• Track record of mentoring engineers and raising technical standards.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and align data initiatives with wider business goals.
• Strategic mindset with a holistic view of data reliability, scalability, and business value.

About Smoove

Hi, we’re Smoove, part of the PEXA Group. Our vision is to simplify and revolutionise the home moving and ownership experience for everyone. We are on a mission to deliver products and services that remove the pain, frustration, uncertainty, friction and stress that the current process creates. We are a leading provider of tech in the property sector – founded in 2003, our product focus has been our conveyancer two-sided marketplace, connecting consumers with a range of quality conveyancers to choose from at competitive prices via our easy-to-use tech platform. We are now building out our ecosystem so consumers can benefit from our services either via their Estate Agent or their Mortgage Broker, through smarter conveyancing platforms, making the home buying or selling process easier, quicker, safer and more transparent.

Why join Smoove? Great question! We pride ourselves on attracting, developing and retaining a diverse range of people in an equally diverse range of roles and specialisms – who together achieve outstanding results. Our transparent approach and open door policy make Smoove a great place to work and as our business expands, we are looking for ambitious, talented people to join us.