Principal Data Engineer — Lead Cloud Data Platform

The Very Group; Liverpool; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible, hybrid working model

£1000 flexible benefits allowance

Job summary

The Very Group is hiring a hands-on Principal Data Engineer within the Data Enablement team. You will drive architecture, mentor engineers, and shape the data platform across multiple initiatives, partnering with Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and senior engineers.

You will design scalable cloud-native data architectures on AWS, lead complex data solutions, and set engineering standards, balancing performance, security and cost while enabling data-driven decisions across the business.

Qualifications

• Experience building and supporting production data solutions.
• Strong knowledge of AWS cloud services including S3, EKS, Lambda, SNS, EventBridge, IAM.
• Strong coding skills in Python and SQL; Java or Scala experience is beneficial.
• Experience with Iceberg, Starburst, Teradata, HVR or similar data platforms.
• Experience with data lakes, data warehouses, Lakehouse technologies.
• Understanding of data ingestion, change data capture (CDC), data modelling and analytics.
• Experience with version control, CI/CD and modern engineering practices.
• Collaborative mindset and willingness to learn.
• Desire to continually improve the platform.

Responsibilities

• Providing technical leadership across multiple teams and initiatives.
• Designing scalable, resilient, and secure data architectures.
• Building and evolving cloud-native data platforms and services.
• Leading the design and implementation of complex data engineering solutions.
• Driving improvements in performance, scalability, reliability, and cost optimisation.
• Setting engineering standards through code reviews, reusable patterns, and best practices.
• Supporting engineers through coaching, mentoring, and technical leadership.
• Collaborating with Product, Platform, and Architecture teams to align technical direction with business priorities.
• Leading investigations into complex production issues and driving long-term improvements.
• Identifying technical risks and opportunities, helping to shape the future roadmap of the platform.

Skills

AWS cloud services

Python

SQL

Mentoring

Leadership

Tools

S3

EKS

Lambda

SNS

EventBridge

IAM

Iceberg

Starburst

Teradata

HVR

Job description

The Very Group is hiring a hands-on Principal Data Engineer within the Data Enablement team. You will drive architecture, mentor engineers, and shape the data platform across multiple initiatives, partnering with Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and senior engineers.

You will design scalable cloud-native data architectures on AWS, lead complex data solutions, and set engineering standards, balancing performance, security and cost while enabling data-driven decisions across the business.