Principal Engineer

Unifeye Ltd.; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Exclusive Databricks work

Ownership & autonomy

Principal-level career path

Impact on clients

Collaboration with Databricks

Continuous learning & certs

Flexible hybrid working

Job summary

Unifeye Ltd. is seeking an experienced Principal Engineer to lead hands-on build and delivery of modern data and AI solutions on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform.

You will set engineering standards, mentor colleagues, and partner with customers to solve complex business challenges alongside architects and AI specialists. As the most senior individual contributor, you’ll drive production-grade implementations, maintain code quality, and help grow Unifeye’s technical capability through

Qualifications

• 8+ years hands-on engineering delivering enterprise data platforms.
• Strong production experience with Databricks solutions.
• Deep Apache Spark expertise including performance tuning.
• Expert-level Python and SQL.
• Strong understanding of modern Lakehouse architecture and Unity Catalog.
• Consulting or customer-facing delivery experience.
• Experience with Azure, AWS or GCP.
• Experience implementing CI/CD, testing frameworks and deployment automation.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead the hands-on design, build and optimisation of enterprise data and AI solutions on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform.
• Engineer production-grade Lakehouse implementations using technologies such as Unity Catalog, Delta Live Tables, MLflow and Lakeflow.
• Own the hardest technical problems on an engagement - performance tuning, complex migrations, scale and reliability.
• Set engineering standards for code quality, testing, observability and reusability across delivery teams.
• Build reusable frameworks, accelerators and internal tooling that make every engagement faster and more consistent.
• Translate architectural direction into working, production-ready solutions, and feed engineering reality back into architecture.
• Lead technical workshops, code and design reviews, and deep-dive sessions with customers.
• Support Proof of Concepts and pre-sales engagements with credible, hands-on technical depth.
• Establish best practices for governance, security, CI/CD, DataOps and MLOps.
• Collaborate closely with Databricks and internal delivery teams.
• Mentor engineers and help grow the consultancy's technical capability.

Skills

Spark performance tuning

Python

SQL

Databricks Lakehouse

Unity Catalog

CI/CD

Cloud platforms

Stakeholder management

Job description

About Unifeye

Unifeye is a delivery-led, Databricks-first consultancy helping organisations unlock the full value of their data and AI.

We're a lean, high-growth team based in London, working at the intersection of data, technology and business strategy. We partner with enterprise organisations across industries to solve complex data challenges through modern Lakehouse architectures on Databricks.

Joining Unifeye means more than delivering projects. From day one, you'll be trusted to take ownership, challenge conventional thinking and make a genuine impact. With a high degree of autonomy, you'll help shape client outcomes, influence our technical direction and play a key role in the growth of the business.

The Role

We're looking for an experienced Principal Engineer to join our Engineering team and lead the hands-on build and delivery of modern data and AI solutions on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform.

As our most senior individual contributor, you'll set the engineering standard at Unifeye. You'll work across multiple enterprise engagements, staying deep in the code while partnering with customers to solve complex business challenges alongside architects, engineers and AI specialists. You'll provide hands-on technical leadership from prototype through to production, helping customers build scalable, secure and governed data platforms that perform at enterprise scale.

Alongside client delivery, you'll raise the bar for how we engineer, mentor colleagues, share knowledge and contribute to the continued growth of Unifeye.

What You'll Do

• Lead the hands-on design, build and optimisation of enterprise data and AI solutions on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform.
• Engineer production-grade Lakehouse implementations using technologies such as Unity Catalog, Delta Live Tables, MLflow and Lakeflow.
• Own the hardest technical problems on an engagement - performance tuning, complex migrations, scale and reliability.
• Set engineering standards for code quality, testing, observability and reusability across delivery teams.
• Build reusable frameworks, accelerators and internal tooling that make every engagement faster and more consistent.
• Translate architectural direction into working, production-ready solutions, and feed engineering reality back into architecture.
• Lead technical workshops, code and design reviews, and deep-dive sessions with customers.
• Support Proof of Concepts and pre-sales engagements with credible, hands-on technical depth.
• Establish best practices for governance, security, CI/CD, DataOps and MLOps.
• Collaborate closely with Databricks and internal delivery teams.
• Mentor engineers and help grow the consultancy's technical capability.
  

What We're Looking For

Essential

• 8+ years' hands-on engineering experience delivering enterprise data platforms or analytics solutions.
• Strong commercial experience building and delivering Databricks solutions in production.
• Deep expertise in Apache Spark, including performance tuning and optimisation at scale.
• Expert-level Python and SQL, with a track record of writing production-quality, well-tested code.
• Strong understanding of modern Lakehouse architecture and Unity Catalog.
• Consulting or customer-facing delivery experience.
• Experience with Azure, AWS or GCP.
• Experience implementing CI/CD, testing frameworks and deployment automation.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Desirable

• Databricks certification.
• Experience delivering AI or Generative AI solutions.
• Experience with MLflow, Terraform or Databricks Asset Bundles.
• Experience building reusable frameworks, accelerators or internal platform tooling.
• Previous technical leadership, mentoring or engineering-standards ownership at senior or principal level.

Why Join Unifeye?

We're building a consultancy where talented people can do their best work.

At Unifeye, you'll have the opportunity to solve meaningful problems, work with leading enterprise organisations and collaborate with some of the UK's most experienced Databricks specialists. As a high-growth business, you'll have the autonomy to make decisions, influence how we work and see the direct impact of your contributions.

We offer:

• The opportunity to work exclusively with Databricks technologies.
• High levels of ownership and autonomy from day one.
• A genuine principal-level technical career path, depth and influence without stepping away from the tools.
• The chance to make a real impact on clients and the growth of the business.
• Close collaboration with Databricks teams.
• Continuous learning, certification and career development.
• Competitive salary, bonus, generous benefits and flexible hybrid working.
  

If you're passionate about building modern data platforms, enjoy solving complex technical challenges and want to help shape a fast-growing consultancy, we'd love to hear from you.