Data (Product) Engineer (£39,163)

Job summary

Do you have a background in data or software engineering, analysis or data science?

If you are interested in engineering reliable and maintainable data products for a large organisation, we would love to hear from you.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Find out more about what it's like working at DVLA roles: Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency - Department for Transport Careers

Job description

We are seeking a Data (Product) Engineer to join our data platform team to help us build and maintain data products that enable better decisions, insights and services across the DVLA.

You will build and support data pipelines, develop data models and write transformation logic, ensuring data is accurate, accessible and fit for purpose. The role requires practical ability to work with technologies such as SQL, Python, Databricks and Apache Spark.

This is a hands-on role. You will work within a multidisciplinary team, following established engineering standards and contributing across the full product lifecycle. You will support live data products — improving performance, investigating issues and keeping things reliable. You will work closely with data users and stakeholders to understand requirements and ensure what we deliver meets their needs.

While you will not be responsible for building or operating the underlying data platform, you will contribute to the direction and standards for how data products are designed, built and maintained. You will be expected to write clean, maintainable code, follow good engineering practices and contribute to a culture of quality and continuous improvement.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:

Implement, support and maintain data flows and integrations, to connect operational systems, data for analytics and business intelligence (BI) systems.

• Support data products and their users to provide accessible data for analysis
• Build and maintain data products, tools, services built on batch and streaming technologies
• Being an active part of an agile delivery squad and contributing to full product lifecycle
• Develop and compare data models using recognised tools and standards
• Develop understanding of data processing system performance tuning and its benefits
• Improve the performance and resilience of data products

For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile.

Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

Would you like to find out more about the role, the digital team and what it’s like to work at DVLA? If so, we are organising a familiarisation session where you can virtually 'meet the team' on Wednesday 5th August at 11:30am.

Please click here to book on.

Person specification

We welcome applications from anyone with relevant technical skills. You could have a background in data engineering, software engineering, analysis or data science. We are looking for people who enjoy building things with data and care about doing it well.

You will have experience of:

• Building, maintaining or supporting data pipelines and data products
• Data modelling, including dimensional models (facts and dimensions)
• Working with SQL and Python
• Batch or streaming data processing
• Supporting live data products — monitoring, troubleshooting, improving performance

You will be familiar with:

Software engineering practices such as version control (e.g. git), automated testing, code review and CI/CD

• Agile ways of working within a multidisciplinary team
• Data compliance and security fundamentals, including classification and secure handling

You will also be someone who:

• Works collaboratively with data users and stakeholders to understand what they need
• Cares about engineering standards, code quality and continuous improvement
• Can investigate problems and implement practical solutions

During the interview we will ask you to work with a small notebook containing some SQL and Python code. You will be able to use Google or Bing to help you, but not AI coding assistance tools. We want to see your approach to data exploration and transformation, not memorisation of language features.

Additional Information
Working for the DVLA Digital Team

At DVLA, licensing is just the start. Every project you implement, touch and deliver has a ripple effect that’ll wash across the nation. Here the work you’re doing has the capacity to change the way 53 million people interact with our services. As we aim to keep our roads some of the safest in the world, our innovative, transformative digital-led services help optimise a nation of individuals and business every single day.

To see how our people are transforming our digital services, head over to our DVLA Digital Services Blog and, to understand more about the great opportunities and benefits of working at DVLA read our Inside DVLA blog.

Working hours, office attendance and travel requirements

Full time roles consist of 37 hours per week. Whilst we welcome applications from those looking to work with us on a part time basis, there is a business requirement for the successful candidate to be able to work at least 30 hours per week.

This role is suitable for hybrid working, which is a non-contractual arrangement where a combination of workplace and home-based working can be accommodated subject to business requirements.

The expectation at present is a minimum of 60% of your working time a month will be spent at either your designated workplace (one of the locations cited in the advert) or, when required for business reasons, in another office/work location. There may be occasions where you are required to attend above the