Principal Data Engineer — Cloud Data Platform Leader

VIQU IT Recruitment; Kings Cross; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

VIQU IT Recruitment is assisting a Northwest-based social enterprise to recruit a Principal Data Engineer for a 100% cloud-based data platform. You will provide technical leadership, define project governance, and partner with architects to evolve the platform while ensuring robust, scalable pipelines.

The role is hybrid in the UK with a competitive salary up to £100,000 per year. Strong GCP/AWS/Azure experience, Terraform, Docker, dbt, SQL and Python are essential.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in Data Engineering in a Lead or Principal role.
• Strong background with a cloud-native data platform and hands-on GCP experience.
• Experience with Terraform, Docker, and dbt.
• Advanced SQL and Python skills, with ability to optimize complex queries.
• Strong Data Governance understanding including lineage and data legislation.
• Experience with Agile / Scrum and SDLC.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership, coaching, and mentoring to data engineers.
• Define how data engineering projects are approached, delivered, and governed.
• Work with architects to design and evolve the cloud data platform.
• Ensure robust, scalable, and compliant data pipelines across the platform.
• Lead best practices around data ingestion, transformation, quality, security, and monitoring.
• Drive automation, CI/CD adoption, and continuous improvement.
• Challenge technical decisions and raise engineering standards.

Skills

Data engineering

Lead/Principal

Cloud platforms (GCP/AWS/Azure)

GCP

Terraform

Docker

dbt

SQL

Python

Data governance

Agile/Scrum

Team leadership

DBS check readiness

Tools

AWS

Azure

CI/CD

Cloud

Data Warehouse

GCP

Security

Job description

VIQU IT Recruitment is assisting a Northwest-based social enterprise to recruit a Principal Data Engineer for a 100% cloud-based data platform. You will provide technical leadership, define project governance, and partner with architects to evolve the platform while ensuring robust, scalable pipelines.

The role is hybrid in the UK with a competitive salary up to £100,000 per year. Strong GCP/AWS/Azure experience, Terraform, Docker, dbt, SQL and Python are essential.