Senior Data Engineer (Retail)

We are seeking an experienced Senior Data Engineer to join the Customer Data team within the Data & AI function of a leading UK retail organisation. The team is responsible for building and operating the data foundations that support a wide range of customer-focused use cases, including Customer 360, analytics, AI/ML, marketing and data-driven commercial initiatives.

This is a hands-on engineering role suited to someone who enjoys solving complex data problems, building scalable solutions and working within modern software engineering environments. You will play a key role in designing and delivering reliable, production-grade data ingestion and transformation pipelines, while contributing to the wider architecture and technical direction of customer data capabilities.

The successful candidate will be comfortable taking ownership of technical problems, developing pragmatic solutions with limited oversight and working collaboratively with senior engineers and stakeholders to sense-check and evolve those solutions. You will be responsible for designing, building and operating scalable data ingestion, transformation and integration pipelines for high-volume customer data, with a strong focus on performance, reliability, scalability and data quality. You will contribute to solution design and technical architecture, taking a holistic view of systems, integrations, dependencies and potential risks, while identifying opportunities to improve the wider data estate.

You will work across development and production environments, following established software engineering practices including Git/GitHub, CI/CD, testing, version control and release management. You will collaborate closely with Data Engineers, Software Engineers, Architects, Product teams and other technical stakeholders to deliver complex data initiatives, including real-time, high-throughput and low-latency data solutions where appropriate. You will also be expected to produce clear technical documentation, proactively investigate and resolve complex engineering issues, and take ownership of problems from initial solution design through to deployment and ongoing operation.

We are looking for a software-engineering-minded Data Engineer with strong foundations in data engineering and modern engineering practices. You should have strong commercial experience working on production-scale data platforms and pipelines, together with a solid understanding of software engineering fundamentals. A background in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a similar technical discipline would be advantageous. You will have proven experience designing and building data ingestion, transformation and integration pipelines at scale, alongside strong hands-on experience with Python and SQL.

Experience working with modern cloud-based data platforms across AWS, Azure and/or GCP is expected, together with an understanding of contemporary data engineering technologies, distributed systems, data modelling and scalable architecture patterns. You should be comfortable working in engineering environments where quality, maintainability, observability and production reliability are important. A proactive approach to problem solving is essential, as is the ability to work independently, identify potential issues before they become blockers and communicate effectively with engineers, technical leads and wider stakeholders.

The technical environment includes technologies such as Python, SQL, AWS, Azure, GCP, Databricks, Apache Spark, PySpark, Kafka, Airflow, dbt, Git/GitHub, CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code. Experience with modern data platforms and distributed processing technologies would be beneficial. Experience with Databricks or Hadoop-style data processing environments is useful, although candidates with strong transferable experience across modern data platforms will also be considered.

Previous experience within retail or e-commerce would be advantageous, particularly exposure to customer data environments, MarTech, CRM or digital customer journeys. Experience with Customer 360, Customer Data Platforms, identity resolution, Reverse ETL, MarTech and CRM integrations, data monetisation, analytics enablement, high-throughput or low-latency data systems, or customer data governance and privacy would also be beneficial. However, these areas are not essential where candidates can demonstrate strong core Data Engineering and software engineering experience.

You will join an established Customer Data engineering squad of around eight engineers, working on strategic customer data initiatives within a wider Data & AI function. You will report to the Lead Data Engineer and work closely with senior and lead engineers across the squad. This is a hands-on individual contributor position with no people management responsibility, offering the opportunity to take ownership of significant technical challenges and contribute directly to the design and evolution of strategic customer data capabilities.

If you are an experienced Data Engineer who combines strong technical engineering skills with a pragmatic, ownership-focused approach and wants to work on complex customer data challenges at scale, this could be an excellent opportunity to join a high-performing engineering team within a leading UK retailer.