Principal Data Engineer

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United Kingdom.

📋 Description

• Define and promote target architectures that integrate our transactional, analytical, and AI systems, ensuring our data remains a competitive advantage.

• Serve as a leader for our comprehensive data lifecycle, from OLTP schema design and migrations to OLAP governance, platform management, and analytics.

• Collaborate with Technical Leads to provide practical guidance in support of feature delivery, addressing technical debt, and enhancing architecture. (Hands-on for this role entails staying close to the details without the necessity of coding).

• Work alongside Product Directors to grasp product vision and convert this into actionable deliverables, aligning commercial and engineering objectives.

• Spearhead our transition to an AI-First operational model, designing the data foundations to facilitate AI integration in our products and advocating for innovative methods to drive productivity improvements.

• Design the future infrastructure necessary for LLM orchestration, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and real-time model inference at scale.

• Mentor and coach Technical Leads/Senior Engineers on maintaining architectural and engineering excellence, consistently elevating our standards and aiding in career development.

• Exemplify technical leadership — operate with urgency, maintain a pragmatic approach, and concentrate on outcomes rather than mere output.

• Lead architectural reviews within your domain and ensure all designs comply with Arbor’s standards for quality, reliability, security, and compliance.

• Collaborate with Staff Engineers and Principal Engineers to contribute to Arbor’s overarching technology strategy, engaging beyond your specific domain as necessary.

• Partner with Engineering Management to foster team growth, identify and resolve systemic obstacles, and ensure the achievement of our strategic objectives.

⛳️ Requirements

• Extensive experience in overseeing data architecture with a proven history of delivering iterative outcomes across one or more OLAP domains.

• Strong knowledge of data modeling techniques (Star, Medallion, etc.) and distributed data systems in cloud-native environments (e.g., Snowflake).

• Experience in building and utilizing unstructured data across diverse systems to facilitate product development.

• Proven ability to communicate and influence both technical and non-technical audiences to achieve favorable results.

• Capability to support the development of engineers and technical leads while delivering value across distributed, cross-functional teams.

• Demonstrable experience in an ownership culture where quality, performance, observability, and security are fundamental responsibilities for every engineer.

• An understanding of how AI-first engineering will transform the data ecosystem and work processes, ideally supported by practical examples.

• Experience contributing to or leading technical communities of practice (e.g., chapters, guilds, architecture councils).

• Practical knowledge of DataOps principles, including CI/CD for data and the orchestration of complex pipelines (e.g., AWS, Debezium, Git, Infrastructure as Code).

• Strong commercial understanding of data security standards, encryption at rest/transit, and relevant compliance regulations.

• Financial acumen regarding platforms - demonstrable experience optimizing SaaS platform expenditure and utilizing forecasting models.

🏝️ Benefits

• A dedicated wellbeing team that champions initiatives such as mindfulness, lunch and learns, manager training, mental health first aid training, and much more!

• 32 days of holiday (plus Bank Holidays), comprising 25 days of annual leave and 7 additional company-wide days granted during Easter, Summer, and Christmas.

• Life Assurance paid at 3x annual salary.

• Comprehensive wellness benefits provided by AIG Smart Health, offering a 24/7 virtual GP service, mental health support, counseling, and personalized health checks.

• Private Dental Insurance through Bupa.

• Salary sacrifice pension plan offered by Scottish Widows.

• Enhanced maternity and adoption leave (20 weeks full pay) and paternity leave (6 weeks full pay).

• 5 complimentary return-to-work maternity coaching sessions to assist you in adjusting to this exciting new phase of life!

• Access to services such as Calm and Bippit for financial wellbeing coaching.

• All positions promote flexible working arrangements, and we are open to discussing what this means for you.

• Social committees that organize team, office, and company-wide events to foster camaraderie and celebrate achievements.

• Dedicated professional development training budget (CPD courses, upskilling resources, professional memberships, etc.).

• Opportunity to volunteer with a charity of your choice for one day each year.

• Dog-friendly offices!