Staff Software Engineer - Data Platforms

Role overview

Duties and technical leadership

• Guide squad technical decisions with the product manager and engineering manager.
• Represent engineering and architecture in cross-functional projects from ideation through implementation; shape solutions, communicate decisions, and help deliver them.
• Work with the Head of Data Engineering and peer Staff or Lead Engineers to guide engineering and architecture and implement improvements across the business area.
• Lead decisions on critical technical strategy and implementations, and carry out high-impact hands-on work where appropriate.
• Integrate partner and supplier systems with Our Future Health systems.
• Support colleagues through pairing, peer review, coaching, and technical discussion.
• Join live operations support rotations, respond to incidents, and support operations teams; out-of-hours on-call may be included.
• Anticipate and prevent pipeline problems where possible, and develop short- and long-term solutions when problems occur.
• Keep up with engineering practices across industry, research, and government and identify opportunities to apply them.

Technical qualifications

• Experience leading system architectural design and building cloud-native solutions that process large data volumes at scale.
• High cloud engineering proficiency; Azure is preferred, with AWS and GCP also listed.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Helm, Docker, and large-scale data storage, search, and filtering.
• High proficiency with Infrastructure as Code, including Terraform or Ansible.
• High proficiency in Python; orchestration tools such as Dagster, Prefect, and Airflow are advantageous.
• Experience with Spark, Databricks, data lakes or lakehouses, data modeling, and design patterns.
• In-depth relational database knowledge, such as PostgreSQL, and familiarity with blob, document, or graph stores.
• High proficiency in code review, TDD, CI/CD, pairing, Git, and GitHub.
• Experience operating live software, including observability, logging, error reporting, debugging, and incident management.
• Experience working with sensitive personal data.

Collaboration and domain experience

• Experience working with engineers, product, UX, and non-technical stakeholders; communicate with stakeholders at different levels.
• Understand operational, security, and legal factors in design and explain trade-offs and technology decisions.
• Experience in small, growing, ambiguous organizations; flexibility is valued.
• Strong software quality understanding and experience mentoring or coaching less experienced engineers.
• Comfort facilitating technical discussions, encouraging collaboration, and providing direction.
• Health data experience is advantageous, not essential; FHIR and models such as OMOP, PCORnet, i2b2, and CDISC are advantageous.
• Healthcare experience is not essential, but interest in the organization's health research mission is sought.

Location and working arrangements

• The role may be performed remotely from anywhere in the UK, with occasional travel to London.
• The employer also describes flexible and remote working arrangements and a Central London office in Holborn.

Compensation

• Competitive base salary starts at £105,000 per annum.

Benefits

• Benefits include employer pension contributions up to 12%, 30 days of annual leave plus bank holidays, enhanced parental leave, and wellbeing support.
• Other listed benefits include cycle-to-work, home and technology savings, an electric vehicle scheme, and an employee referral bonus.

Hiring process

• The process includes a Talent team chat, an interview with the Head of Data Engineering, a technical interview with a prepared task, and a final competency interview with a cross-functional panel.