Lead Data Engineer

About us

Direct Line Group is one of the UK's largest insurance companies and home to some of the best-known brands including Direct Line, Churchill and Green Flag. We are going through an exciting transformation to be the top tier data-driven organisation in the UK's General Insurance market.

About the role:

Whilst we've made progress following builds and transformation of core data assets, ranging from cloud data lake, domain data marts, data visualisation and data science platforms we know there's still more we can do.

Our team, the Data Chapter, is at the heart of this mission, and we are looking for people passionate about using data to solve customer problems and making the organisation data-driven.

You will be part of shaping of our future from within the Data Chapter as a Chapter Lead. The craft focus areas are Data Engineering and Architecture. You will work with the business lines in an agile team, alongside analysts, data engineers, BI developers, platform engineers, machine learning engineers. You will work on complex problems, architecting and delivering simple yet efficient solutions

This is hands-on leadership role within the Data Chapter that will be responsible for not just delivering relevant architecture and data engineering solutions but advancing our data strategy vision of making DLG data-driven, promoting domain-driven and self-serve principles and furthering our people development. You will report directly to the Chapter Area Leads within the Data Chapter.

What you'll do:

• Be an ambassador of the Data Chapter and promoting the data strategy, data skills and best practices

• You will lead a team of data domain experts

• You'll be responsible for building tools and infrastructure (cloud native) to support the engineering community, champion test-driven and quality first engineering practices

• You will need to collaborate across technology and teams as part of your role, whilst maintaining delivery and outcome focus.

• You will embrace an agile operating model working in cross-functional teams

• Build data engineering communities and capability around data engineering best practices, focussing on quality and future skills build.

• You will also be responsible for mentoring, coaching and to creating motivated and engaged teams

What you'll need:

• Experience designing solutions, delivery, and test patterns, with care for industry best practices.

• Practical hands-on experience with cloud native development of data lakes or platforms, continuous delivery, and test automation.

• Fluency in Python, Spark and experience writing high quality and maintainable SQL on row/column oriented datastores.

• Experience of cloud storage and computing technologies ( AWS S3, Redshift, Glacier, Athena, EMR, EC2, and RDS)

• Experience in engineering and optimising data pipelines in terabyte to petabyte scale data platforms.

• Experience with the principles of data management, governance, and privacy

• Understanding of industry recognised data models, patterns, and tools commonly in use within the big data space

• Understanding of DevSecOps, CI/CD and agile working practices

• To be technically curious, versatile and with an end-to-end mindset with equal focus on delivery and operational aspects.

• Curiosity to experiment and improve whilst staying aligned on outcomes.

• To embrace a culture of feedback, with the goal of continuous improvement of self and others

• An interest in staying abreast with and understanding new technologies as the landscape changes over time.

• Demonstrate confidence in communications with senior level management.

• Excel in a high demand environment working on multiple tasks in parallel.

Who you’ll work with:

You will work as part of a multi-functional Agile delivery team, including analysts, architects, platform engineers, machine learning engineers, and testers.

Ways of Working

Our mixed model way of working offers a 'best of both worlds' approach combining the best parts of home and office-working, offering flexibility for everyone. How much you'll be in the office depends on your role, and we'll consider the flexible working options that work best for you.

Read our flexible working approach here.

Benefits

We recognise we wouldn't be where we are today without our colleagues, that's why we offer excellent benefits designed to suit your lifestyle:

• 9% employer contributed pension

• 50% off home, motor and pet insurance plus free travel insurance and Green Flag breakdown cover

• Additional optional Health and Dental insurance

• EV car scheme allows all colleagues to lease a brand new electric or plug-in hybrid car in a tax efficient way.

• Generous holidays

• Buy as you earn share scheme

• Employee discounts and cashback

• Plus many more

Being yourself

Direct Line Group is an equal opportunity employer, and we think diversity of background and thinking is a big strength in our people. We're delighted to feature as one of the UK's Top 50 Inclusive Employers and are committed to making our business an inclusive place to work, where everyone can be themselves and succeed in their careers.

We know you're more than a CV, and the things that make you, you, are what bring potential to our business. We recognise and embrace people that work in different ways so if you need any adjustments to our recruitment process, please speak to the recruitment team who will be happy to support you.