Staff Data Engineer | Contract | Up to £1,300/day | Inside IR35

Staff Data Engineer | Contract | Up to £1,300/day | Inside IR35

Location: Hybrid – London (3 days per week on-site)
Rate: Up to £1,300/day
Contract: Initial 6 months
IR35: Inside IR35

We’re supporting a major UK financial services organisation through a significant programme of data engineering modernisation and transformation.

We’re looking for a genuinely Staff-level Data Engineer who combines deep hands-on engineering capability with the technical leadership to challenge existing approaches, shape solutions and raise engineering standards across multiple teams.

This is not a hands-off architecture role. You’ll be expected to shape the thinking, design the solution and get into the code to prove and deliver it.

The role

You’ll work across a major modernisation of the organisation’s data estate, including the transformation and migration of large-scale data pipelines, development of new data products and adoption of modern, AI-assisted engineering practices.

Responsibilities will include:

Providing Staff-level technical leadership across complex data engineering initiatives
Remaining deeply hands-on with Python, PySpark and Spark
Modernising and migrating large-scale data pipelines across AWS
Designing and challenging approaches across AWS Glue, Airflow and associated technologies
Shaping scalable data architectures, frameworks and engineering patterns
Supporting the development of new data products and reusable capabilities
Championing AI-assisted development to improve engineering quality and delivery speed
Raising engineering standards and capability across multiple teamsWhat we're looking for
Deep hands-on Python/PySpark and Apache Spark expertise
Strong AWS data engineering, particularly AWS Glue
Strong Apache Airflow experience
Experience delivering complex data transformation or modernisation programmes
Strong software engineering fundamentals
Experience operating at Staff, Principal or Senior Lead Engineer level
Ability to independently challenge thinking and shape technical solutions
Genuine desire to remain hands-on with code
Experience incorporating AI-assisted development tools into engineering workflows
Snowflake experience would be beneficialThe sweet spot is someone who can operate across both technical strategy and hands-on delivery — setting the engineering direction while still being capable of building and proving the solution