Principal Data Engineer

Hours:

35 hours per week,
Hybrid working can be considered

Salary: Up to £72,350 Per Annum, dependant on skills and experience, plus substantial benefits

Closing Date:

Sun, 9 Mar 2025

You’ll be Joining our rapidly expanding Engineering team, where you'll collaborate with talented Data and Software Engineers and engage closely with stakeholders throughout our Technology function and wider business. Your role is pivotal in driving our innovative solutions forward, aligning with our ambitious change agenda. 

Together, you'll help shape the organization's future by pushing boundaries and transforming ideas into reality. Join us in this journey of growth, creativity, and collaboration as we set new benchmarks in data engineering excellence. Your contribution is key to our shared success.

What You Will Be Doing 

• We are deeply committed to advancing our Data Strategy, embarking on a transformative journey from traditional on-premises  infrastructure to a cutting-edge cloud-based architecture. Our Enterprise Data Platform utilises Microsoft Azure technology including Azure Databricks, Azure Data Factory and dbt.    
• We seek an individual with a proven track record in Azure cloud Data Engineering    to join our team, contributing their expertise to shape and execute the design and implementation of our cloud-native platform. 
• The Principal Data Engineer supports the Senior Data Engineering Leader and Product Owner in the decision making and execution of the team responsibilities.
• Responsible for the specification, building and maintenance of our data & analytics platforms. This includes the integration and management of the various data sources that feed into our data lakehouse as well as availability of data to other platforms and systems.
• The Principal is responsible for the design and implementation of high-level solutions, utilising modern data warehousing methodologies and techniques that ensure our D&A platform is robust and efficient. Our current platform is cloud-based and built using Microsoft Azure technologies, meaning our Data Engineers will design, implement, and manage the Society’s data using the full stack of most appropriate Azure’s services to satisfy business needs, which will be influenced by the knowledge and experience provided by the Principal Data Engineer.
• As an experienced data professional, you will be at the forefront of our Society's transformation, actively engaging in change initiatives and driving process enhancements. Your proactive approach will be pivotal in identifying opportunities for optimization and generating novel ideas to unleash the full potential of data, maximizing value for our Society.
• We embrace a culture of experimentation and constantly strive for improvement and learning.  Using Agile techniques, you will consistently deliver incremental enhancements to our products. You will actively participate in design and code reviews, providing direction and mentoring to others.
• You will do this working in a collaborative, trusting, environment, one that encourages diversity of thought and creative solutions that are in the best interests of our customers and colleagues.

What Do We Need From You?

• Experience in the development of Azure Data solutions
• Knowledge of data modelling principles,  including common patterns, e.g. star schema, snowflake or data vault
• Ability to design and develop an architecture suited to the requirements of the Society’s Data & Analytics Strategy
• Competency  in Agile working methodology
• Experience in implementing a scalable Data and Analytics architecture
• Data Ingestion & Consumption – on-boarding new data sources and ETL processes
• Data Lake – establishing lake storage in the cloud
• Enterprise Data Warehouse – design and implement utilising DW best practice
• Data Marts – understand business requirements for new data marts
• Performance tuning – utilising and optimising compute clusters
• Experience in interpreting and formulating solutions based on functional requirements, including complex or ambiguous requirements from non-technical areas and stakeholders
• Experience in ensuring current testing strategies meet the requirements of the proposed solution to drive high quality outputs
• Experience in evolving existing robust development and testing processes to drive efficiency and quality where necessary
• Experience in developing and maintaining a plan for delivery of engineering outputs which are aligned with the architecture
• Experience in ensuring best practices and standards are implemented within the team, managing and tracking team outputs and quality, monitoring progress and providing feedback where appropriate
• Experience in reviewing and providing feedback and sign-off of peers technical designs and solutions
• Advanced presentation skills and experience in a mentoring/support role

Technology:

• Azure Databricks, Data Factory, Storage, Key Vault 
• Experience with source control systems, such as Git
• dbt (Data Build Tool) for transforming and modelling data 
• SQL (Spark SQL) & Python (PySpark

Certifications:

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP-203) 
• Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate

You will need to be:

• Curious about technology and adaptable to new technologies
• Agile-minded, optimistic, passionate, and pragmatic about delivering valuable data solutions to customers 
• Willing to mentor & support colleagues, leveraging their experience & knowledge

What’s in it for you.
Skipton values work/life balance and we are proud to support hybrid and flexible working, where possible. We have a newly refurbished head office which offers a vibrant and collaborative working space. 

We have a range of other benefits available to you including;

• Annual discretionary bonus scheme
• 25 days standard annual leave + bank holidays + rising 1 day per year of service to a maximum of 30 days
• Holiday trading scheme allowing the ability to buy and sell additional annual leave days
• Matching employer pension contribution (up to 10% per annum)
• Colleague mortgage (conditions apply)
• Salary sacrifice scheme for hybrid & electric car 
• A commitment to training and development 
• Private medical insurance for all our colleagues 
• 3 paid volunteering days per annum 
• Diverse and inclusive colleague networks available for you to join including our Carers and Pride Alliance groups
• We care about your health and wellbeing – we provide a range of benefits that support this including cycle to work initiative and discounted gym membership

About Skipton Building Society

Not just another building society. Not just another job.

We are the fourth biggest building society in the UK and what makes us a bit different is that we're a mutual organisation. We don't have shareholders; we're owned by our members.

Our colleagues say Skipton's a great place to work, and you could be one of them, bringing with you new ideas on how we can keep customers at the heart of what we do.