Senior Data Engineer

Candidates must be within reasonable commuting distance of Harrogate.

Contract Length

12-month fixed term maternity cover contract.

Who we are

LINK is a not-for-profit company governed by an independent Board and is the UK's largest cash machine network, connecting virtually all the UK’s ATMs and providing communities with access to cash through services such as cashback at retailers’ tills and Banking Hubs.  While many consumers are now embracing digital payments, there are still millions of people who rely on cash every day.  At LINK, we are passionate about protecting access to cash on the UK’s High Streets and ensuring it is maintained for as long as it is needed through the operation of our well-established Financial Inclusion Programme. LINK is regulated by the Payments Systems Regulator and the Bank of England and have a great track record of delivering results for communities.

What does the role involve? 

The Senior Data Engineer will be responsible for developing, maintaining, and supporting the data engineering solutions that underpin LINK's operational services, regulatory reporting and analytical capabilities.

The role will support the ongoing evolution of LINK's data platform and contribute to the migration of existing SQL Server-based processes and datasets to modern cloud-based data engineering solutions (Fabric or Databricks). Working closely with the data team and wider stakeholders, the role will help deliver scalable, governed and trusted data products using modern engineering practices and tooling.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Develop and maintain data pipelines, transformation processes and data products supporting operational, regulatory and analytical requirements.
• Build and support ingestion, validation, transformation, and publication of processes using Azure Data Factory and cloud data engineering platforms (Azure Databricks or Microsoft Fabric) using Spark SQL and PySpark.
• Support the implementation and operation of Medallion Architecture principles, including bronze, silver and gold data layers, to deliver trusted and reusable data products.
• Contribute to the migration and modernisation of existing complex SQL Server databases, stored procedures, scheduled processes, and legacy data workflows to modern cloud-based engineering solutions.
• Develop and maintain data quality controls including validation, reconciliation, exception management, historical comparison and operational monitoring processes.
• Support the publication and movement of trusted data products to downstream operational systems, reporting platforms and analytical applications.
• Work collaboratively with Data Engineering, Data Analytics, Spatial Analytics, IT, and business stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver scalable, maintainable, and supportable solutions.
• Support investigation, diagnosis and resolution of operational data issues, data incidents, and platform issues/failures.
• Contribute to source control, CI/CD, documentation standards and engineering best practices across the Data Engineering and Analytical functions.
• Identify opportunities to improve automation, operational resilience, engineering efficiency, and platform capability.
• Maintain awareness of and apply industry best practice to support the continued evolution of LINK's data platform.

What will I need to know? 

• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in data engineering, data warehousing or database development.
• Minimum of 8 years’ experience in SQL Server development, administration and optimisation.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience designing, developing and delivering ETL/ELT solutions.
• Minimum of 3 years’ experience working with modern cloud data platforms, including Microsoft Fabric or Azure Databricks.
• Proven experience delivering SQL Server migration, modernisation or cloud transformation programmes.
• Practical experience migrating stored procedures, ETL processes, SQL Agent jobs and data warehouse workloads to cloud-based platforms.
• Hands-on experience designing, developing and supporting data integration solutions using Azure Data Factory.
• Advanced SQL development, database design and administration.
• Strong capability in data modelling and data warehousing.
• Design and development of robust, scalable ETL/ELT pipelines.
• Python, SQL and PySpark.
• Azure Data Factory.
• Database and pipeline performance tuning, optimisation and troubleshooting.
• Data quality, reconciliation, validation and exception management frameworks.
• Source control, deployment automation and CI/CD engineering practices.
• Cloud data architecture, platform engineering and solution design.
• Operational monitoring, auditing, incident investigation and production support.
• Problem Solving.
• Critical Thinking.
• Communication.
• Stakeholder Management.

What is in it for me?

You will be joining a not-for-profit business with a lovely working culture, and our employees are at the centre of our focus.

In addition to the base salary, LINK operates a bonus scheme and offers a wide range of employee benefits including group life and income protection, company pension scheme, private medical and dental insurance, hybrid working and learning opportunities. Our Harrogate office has an on-site café, gym, free car parking including electric charging points   and bike parking facilities as well.

We will be interviewing as we receive CVs so if you are interested in this role, please apply as soon as possible.