Senior Data Engineer

We are a collective of techies that have a deep understanding of data and how best to build data centric and data connected solutions for our customers.

Known to us as ‘Shedders’, the people that make up our team are a curious and supportive bunch. We provide both technical and nontechnical roles and strive to develop people in areas they’re interested in to help them succeed in their chosen career. Pair programming and constructive feedback are two things you should expect when joining The Shed, which form part of our Learning and Development framework.

Like many other organisations we recognise the importance diversity plays in creating a successful, balanced, and fair organisation which is why The Data Shed prides itself on having an inclusive culture. We regularly collect feedback from the people who keep the wheels turning and make sure everyone knows that their opinions and values are respected. Talking of values, we have 5 of our own that keep us on track and working towards the same goal:

• Treat People Right: We want people who are respectful of others and keen to get to know their fellow Shedders so we can collaborate better.
• Know Your Audience: We pitch information at the correct level so no one feels bamboozled by jargon. We seek to understand our audience so we all know what is being said.
• Share the Knowledge: Sharing knowledge helps everyone; if you’re in a silo you can’t help anyone or be helped. When we share knowledge, we all improve.
• Always seek value: If what you’re doing doesn’t drive value for a client, the Shed or yourself it’s probably fair to say there’s a better use of your time!
• Take care of the fundamentals: Get the basics right & check your work. When the foundations are rock solid you can build anything. Remember: make it right; then make it fast. And take care of the coffee machine.

The Data Shed are an equal opportunities employer, and we know how important it is to have a good work-life balance. We do our best to allow every member of the team a working pattern that suits them, whether that’s being around for school pickups or taking a longer lunch to walk the dog. As long as your team and clients have been considered then we’re confident in our approach to treat everyone like adults, with wellbeing as a priority.

What do we do?

Our solutions help our customers realise value beyond the boundaries of systems and applications. We collaborate with our customers to build secure, scalable and well-engineered systems that can be relied on. We love data and have made it our mission to build awesome systems that allow our customers to understand and get the most from their data.

As part of a close-working and collaborative team, we make data valuable and available to our clients, through consultancy services or product development.

Our Engineering Environment: Engineering is at the core of what we do!

• At The Data Shed, we've been working with some truly inspiring clients on anything from real-time data integration and data mining, business-wide Single View of Customer systems to our own SaaS product.
• We face new and exciting challenges every day, from ensuring high availability and performance of critical government systems, to understanding and improving complex banking and finance data structures.
• Our engineers can work on a broad range of technologies; our work is largely spread across the major cloud providers—Amazon Web Services, Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
• Infrastructure-as-code approach using Terraform—and, with a data-centric perspective, often using Python or SQL.
• Java, TypeScript/JavaScript, Go, Scala and others are an occasional requirement.

Requirements

The Senior Data Engineer will have the following responsibilities:

• Assist our clients in enterprise-scale projects utilising best-practice development methodologies, well tested
• Spend as much time on tests and security as on writing code.
• Work with a team of like-minded, high-calibre engineers to translate user requirements into working
• Lead definition and maintenance of best practice and standards in development and design principles
• Make it right and only then make it fast.
• If you see something that’s broken, fix it. That includes the coffee machine.

Skills & Experience

The Data Engineer should have a broad experience of highly available, transactional and scalable solutions.

• Server-side Software Engineering experience.
• An understanding of automated build and deployment technologies.
• An understanding of data modelling – from 3NF through to denormalisation for analysis.
• A working knowledge of software development delivery in an Agile environment.
• Broader knowledge of IT – Networking, platform, hardware, security.
• TDD/BDD.
• Experience of moving in a fast-paced, agile environment.
• Strong stakeholder management
• Above all, The Data Engineer must be open to new technologies, quick to adapt, and quick to learn.

Benefits

We have a variety of benefits including free access to an EAP program, an auto enrolment pension scheme, a life assurance scheme, regular socials and a company performance-based bonus and for any additional needs you have, we have a friendly and knowledgeable HR team to support you.

Location, On Call & Shift Allowance

We are building a new squad in Edinburgh and the role can be performed in a hybrid fashion. Working from home is something we have done successfully through the pandemic, and we will be continuing in this vein moving forward. You will be expected to come in with your client team at least once per fortnight. There will be remote working until the office space is ready and we will provide expenses to meet the team in Leeds when appropriate.

Ready to be a Shedder?

Your employment will be subject to your satisfactory completion of a probationary period, a reference being provided by your previous employer and the completion of a Disclosure Scotland check.

We also celebrate each other’s differences and encourage each other to explore new ways of thinking. The result is a diverse set of individuals who come together to create a multi-talented, cohesive organisation. If you think that your uniqueness could make us even stronger, then please get in touch!