Semantic Layer Architect for AI-Driven Analytics

Pleo; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Pleo is seeking a Senior Staff Analytics Engineer to lead our Data Services & Governance, owning the semantic layer and analytics standards across the company. You’ll shape how metrics are defined, modeled, and consumed by analysts, BI tools, and AI agents, setting the foundation for scalable, trusted analytics.

You’ll partner with the Intelligence function, backend engineers, and product teams to define data contracts, drive data governance, and advance AI-enabled data migrations across the

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in dbt and modelling practices, able to defend trade-offs and enforce standards across teams.
• Deep BigQuery and SQL expertise, with performance and architectural considerations for complex analytics.
• Experience owning a semantic layer (LookML, dbt MetricFlow, or equivalent) and ensuring metric consistency at scale.
• AI-native development practice in a data engineering context, using AI tools where they add real value.
• Track record of setting standards across teams you don’t manage and influencing effectively.
• Understanding of what LLMs and agentic tools need from a data layer for reliable AI answers.
• Credible engagement with backend engineers on data contracts and senior stakeholders on semantic layer strategy.

Responsibilities

• Own the semantic layer: define metric definitions, where they live, and how enforced for unified analytics.
• Set data modelling standards for a clean, layered dbt architecture across domains and levels of complexity.
• Build and run the Analytics Engineering community of practice with documentation, reviews, and onboarding patterns.
• Lead AI-native development practice, integrating AI coding tools into governance of data models.
• Lead AI-augmented migration work to accelerate data modelling across platforms.
• Design data models and metric definitions to be consumed reliably by AI services.
• Engage with backend and product engineers to drive data contract discipline and upstream schema ownership.
• Contribute to Data & AI products for external customer-facing analytics.

Skills

dbt

BigQuery

SQL

Semantic layer

AI-native development

Data modelling standards

LLMs & AI tooling

Stakeholder engagement

Tools

LookML

dbt Core

Claude Code

GitHub Copilot

Python

Airflow

Analytics tooling

Job description

Pleo is seeking a Senior Staff Analytics Engineer to lead our Data Services & Governance, owning the semantic layer and analytics standards across the company. You’ll shape how metrics are defined, modeled, and consumed by analysts, BI tools, and AI agents, setting the foundation for scalable, trusted analytics.

You’ll partner with the Intelligence function, backend engineers, and product teams to define data contracts, drive data governance, and advance AI-enabled data migrations across the