Principal Data Engineer

Principal Data Engineer

Department: IT Support, Infrastructure & Security

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Office, Avonmouth/Filton

ELEMIS is a leading British skincare brand, globally recognized for its fusion of nature and science in skincare innovation. Founded in London in 1989, we have built a reputation for high‑performance skincare solutions, delivering exceptional results through cutting‑edge formulations. With a presence in over 45 countries, ELEMIS partners with luxury spas, cruise ships and retail stores worldwide, serving millions of customers each year.

Our commitment to excellence extends beyond skincare to innovation in technology, ensuring that data and insights drive business success.

We are looking to recruit a Principal Data Engineer who reports to our Data Engineering Manager and works alongside a team of Engineers.

This is a full time (37.5 hour per week) permanent role. This role is based in our Avonmouth (near Bristol) offices. We offer hybrid working, meaning we are in the office three days per week and work from home two days per week. We also offer flexible working, with core hours between 10am – 4pm.

Our Fabric Data Modernization Project

ELEMIS is on a transformative journey to modernize our data architecture, aligning with the three core pillars of our data strategy:
Robust, Timely and Trusted data
. Our mission is to empower data‑driven decision‑making across the organization by building a scalable and resilient data platform.

The initial phase of this modernization effort focuses on our D365 Finance & Operations (F&O) ERP data sources
, which underpin 70% of our current reporting suite
. To achieve our vision, we are developing a metadata‑driven Medallion architecture
, leveraging Microsoft Fabric and best‑in‑class data engineering practices. This approach ensures structured and scalable data management, enabling efficient data processing and governance.

A key focus of this initiative is the continuous development of Star Schema Lakehouse tables within the Gold Layer
, ensuring that business‑critical data is structured to support advanced analytics and reporting. This involves deep collaboration with stakeholders to understand business reporting needs and define how data will be served through the semantic layer for BI and self‑service analytics.

Through this ambitious project, we are laying the foundation for a future‑proofed data ecosystem that enhances agility, transparency and insight‑driven innovation at ELEMIS.

• Collaborates with the Data Engineering Manager and the wider team to design and implement scalable data solutions that meet business needs.
• Comfortable leading grooming sessions, ensuring alignment between technical teams and business stakeholders.
• An expert in Microsoft Fabric, PySpark, Spark
  
  SQL and T‑SQL, with a strong understanding of data architecture and modern data engineering principles.
• Works closely with business users to document information requirements and translate them into robust data models.
• Leads the development of data streaming and real‑time analytics systems.
• Optimizes code and queries for high performance and efficient resource utilisation.
• Balances big‑picture architecture decisions with deep technical expertise in data modelling and business logic to deliver robust solutions.
• Pragmatic approach to delivering Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) while ensuring long‑term scalability and maintainability.
• Strong ability to prioritise and manage a busy workload, making strategic decisions about technical debt and feature development.
• Exposure to machine learning (ML) and AI technologies is beneficial.
• Champions attention to detail, clear communication, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn.
• Lead the design and maintenance of data pipelines and workflows, ensuring efficiency, scalability and adherence to best practices.
• Actively collaborate with the Data Engineering Manager to define and evolve long‑term data strategies.
• Comfortable leading backlog grooming sessions, facilitating discussions with data engineers and business stakeholders.
• Work closely with stakeholders across BI Reporting, ERP, Marketing and Data…