Staff Data Engineer

Loop Recruitment; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Loop Recruitment is helping a premier engineering-led SaaS scale-up build a next-generation data platform. The role is senior and architecture-focused, giving substantial autonomy and influence as you design scalable, AI-ready data foundations for analytics and AI tooling.

You’ll own data platform decisions, drive best practices, and partner with Finance, People, and Technology teams to translate business problems into robust data solutions.

Qualifications

• Senior/Lead Data Engineer with cloud experience
• Deep SQL and Python expertise
• Strong architecture and systems design capability
• Experience building AWS-based data platforms
• Understanding of data warehousing, governance and semantic modelling
• Ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• Interest in AI, LLMs, context engineering or agentic systems
• Experience in product-led/SaaS tech businesses (preferred)

Responsibilities

• Design scalable cloud-native data platforms and pipelines
• Own architecture decisions across data warehousing and governance
• Build AI-ready datasets and contextual data models for LLMs
• Translate business problems into technical solutions
• Champion testing, CI/CD, observability and data quality
• Help define long-term data roadmaps and end-state architecture
• Collaborate with analysts and engineers across domains
• Contribute to a high-performance engineering culture

Skills

Senior Data Engineer

SQL

Python

Architecture

AWS

Data Warehousing

Stakeholder Communication

AI/LLMs/Context Eng

SaaS / Product-led

Tools

dbt

Glue

Redshift

Spark

Job description

Up to £150K + Equity + Strong Benefits

TECH: AWS | Python | SQL | dbt | Spark | Redshift | Data Warehousing | AI/LLM Context Engineering

We’re partnered with a highly respected, engineering-led technology SAAS scale up building products used by hundreds of thousands of technical professionals globally.

They’re now investing heavily in the next evolution of their data platform - moving beyond traditional reporting pipelines and into AI-ready data systems, context engineering, and decision intelligence.

This is a senior, architecture-focused Data Engineering role with a huge amount of autonomy and influence.

The Opportunity

• This isn’t a “keep the lights on” Data Engineering role.
• You’ll help shape the future state of how data is structured, governed and consumed across the business - designing scalable systems that support analytics, operational decision-making and AI-driven use cases.
• A major focus of the role is building clean, contextualised, well-structured data foundations that can power LLMs, internal AI tooling and agentic workflows.
• You’ll operate as a senior technical voice within a growing Context Engineering function, partnering closely with stakeholders across Finance, People and Technology domains.
• The environment is highly collaborative but gives Engineers genuine ownership over architecture, tooling and delivery decisions.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Designing and building scalable cloud-native data platforms and pipelines
• Owning architecture decisions across data warehousing, governance and semantic structures
• Building AI-ready datasets and contextual data models for LLM consumption
• Working closely with stakeholders to translate business problems into technical solutions
• Driving best practices around testing, CI/CD, observability and data quality
• Helping define long-term data roadmaps and end-state architecture
• Partnering with analysts and engineers across multiple business domains
• Contributing to a strong feedback and high-performance engineering culture

What They’re Looking For

• Strong experience as a Senior / Lead Data Engineer in modern cloud environments
• Deep SQL and Python expertise
• Strong architecture and systems design capability
• Experience building scalable AWS-based data platforms
• Strong understanding of data warehousing, governance and semantic modelling
• Comfortable communicating technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• Experience working closely with business functions rather than purely isolated engineering teams
• Interest in AI, LLMs, context engineering or agentic systems
• Ideally experience within product-led or SaaS technology businesses

Bonus Points

• Exposure to reverse ETL tooling
• Experience building data foundations for AI/ML use cases
• Knowledge of GDPR / ISO27001 environments
• Experience with dbt, Glue, Redshift or Spark

Why Join?

• High autonomy and ownership
• Engineering-led culture with strong technical standards
• Complex greenfield architecture challenges
• Real investment into AI and data maturity
• Opportunity to shape how AI is embedded into a global technology business
• Collaborative onsite environment with highly engaged technical teams

If you’re excited by modern Data Engineering, AI context systems and building scalable platforms properly from the ground up - happy to chat.