Principal Data Engineer

Principal Data Engineer

Recruiter contact: Nikki George

Location: London, GB

Mott Mac Donald is a global engineering, management, and development consultancy. We’re seeking a Principal Data Engineer to shape and implement our enterprise data architecture, delivering impactful AI and analytics solutions across our global business.

• Design and implement enterprise data pipelines for structured and unstructured data.
• Lead development of semantic data models and enterprise ontology.
• Provide technical direction and mentoring for a small team of data engineers.
• Build, evolve, and maintain scalable, secure data pipelines, APIs, and infrastructure in a modern cloud environment (Azure preferred).
• Collaborate with stakeholders across business units to gather requirements and communicate architecture decisions.
• Promote robust data management, including lineage, observability, access control, and ethical data use.
• Stay abreast of industry trends in data architecture, engineering, and metadata/semantic technologies.
• Collaborate with other architects to define and implement data architecture patterns.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Experience in data engineering and architecture in complex or regulated environments.
• Expertise in designing scalable data architectures on cloud platforms (Azure preferred).
• Strong experience with data modelling and familiarity with catalogues, knowledge graphs, or ontology tools.
• Proven experience managing or mentoring other data engineers.
• Solid programming skills in Python and SQL; familiarity with Git, CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes.
• Experience with data pipeline orchestration tools (e.g., Dagster) and modern data stack components.

• Shape responsible, high‑impact data and AI solutions in infrastructure, engineering, and consulting.
• Work with a mature team focused on improving data engineering within the organisation.
• Lead and mentor within a collaborative, fast‑growing team.
• Gain exposure to diverse, meaningful projects with social and environmental value.

• Private medical insurance and health cash plan.
• Life assurance up to 4× basic salary, with options to increase.
• Flexible benefits: pension contributions, critical illness insurance, payroll savings.
• Minimum 33–35 days holiday per year, increasing with tenure.
• Learning & development support: professional subscriptions, training, mentoring.
• Inclusive workplace with employee networks and social impact programmes.