Principal Data Engineer

Were First Central Insurance & Technology Group (First Central for short) an innovative marketleading insurance company. We protect the things customers love so they can get on with what matters to them in life.

Data drives us. It fuels our outstanding distribution finance technology and legal services. Our underwriting skills are built on data expertise; it creates the insights we need to give the right cover to the right customers at the right price. But its the people inside and outside our business that power us. They make us stand out help us succeed. Were ambitious. Were growing. Weve won awards.

At First Central we have ambitious growth plans and a commitment to delivering outstanding services to our customers. To support our business and data strategy were investing in our central data teams. Were now recruiting a Principal Data Engineer to join our Data Engineering Leadership team. This role represents the pinnacle of data engineering expertise at First Central acting as a key bridge between business opportunities and technical solutions.

Working across multiple data product teams youll support capability leads product owners and data engineers to design build and run highperforming data solutions within our Azure data platform. If youre passionate about data cloud technology and enabling business success through highquality engineering wed love to hear from you

This is a flexible hybrid working role with occasional visits to our offices when requiredin either Salford Quays Manchester Haywards Heath West Sussex or Guernsey.If you live further afield well accept applications for remote workers! We offer great flexibility in working patterns and a companywide culture to be proud of.

Core skills were looking for to succeed in the role:

• Data Engineering:As a Principal Data Engineer youll showcase expertise across all stages of the SDLC while coaching mentoring and supporting our teams of data engineers.
• Cloud Platforms:Youll have deep experience with Azure data platforms ensuring best practices are followed to create and maintain a wellmanaged highperforming platform.
• Agile Working:Youll understand how to develop solutions iteratively within agile teams always focusing on delivering business value.
• Business Intelligence:With BI as the primary consumer of our data solutions youll have a strong grasp of reporting dashboards and advanced modelling.
• AI/ML:As we continue investing in AI and machine learning experience in this area will be highly beneficial as we explore and develop new use cases.

Powering the business with the right tools

Whats involved:

• Youll be responsible for creating or guiding the lowlevel design of data solutions taking high level solution architecture artefacts and translating them into workable designs and work packages
• Youll be responsible for the quality of the overall data platform(s) ensuring that data pipelines and database solutions are implemented effectively from a reuse and performance optimisation perspective
• Youll be responsible for coding standards low level design and ingestion patterns for the data platform(s) that all users including data engineers follow.
• Youll develop high complexity secure governed high quality efficient data pipelines from a variety of on and off premise internal and external data sources
• Youll set the standards and ensure that data is cleansed mapped transformed and optimised for storage to meet requirements for business and technical use cases
• Youll design and build of data observability and data quality by design into all Data pipelines promoting selftesting pipelines that proactively identify processing issues or discrepancies
• Youll build solutions that pipe transform data into data lake storage areas physical database models and reporting structures across data lake data warehouse business intelligence systems and analytics applications
• Youll build physical data models that are appropriately designed to meet business needs and optimise storage requirements ensuring maximum reuse
• Youll carry out unit testing of own code peer testing of others code to ensure appropriate quality and be responsible for completeness and integrity of solutions delivered on the data platform(s)
• Youll ensure that effective and appropriate documentation that brings transparency and understandability are in place for all content on the data platform(s)
• Youll coach and mentor Senior Data Engineers Data engineers & Associate Data Engineers
• Youll create high complexity BI solutions including data mart semantic layer and reporting & visualisation solutions in recognised BI tools such as PowerBI

Experience & knowledge

• Requires extensive experience of designing and building end to end data solutions 10 years
• Exceptional at building strong effective relationships with people from different disciplines.
• Experience of carrying out data engineering design and build activities using agile working practices (such as Scrum or Kanban).
• Experience of Databricks solutions Databricks administration and pyspark.
• Data Factory/Synapse Workspace for building data pipelines or synapse analytics pipelines
• Data Lake Delta Lake design pattern implementation experience in Azure Data Lake Gen2 with file hierarchy namespace and lowlevel permissions management
• Synapse Warehouse/Analytics Experience in Synapse data mappings external tables schema creation from SSMS knowledge on how Synapse pool works behind the scenes
• Azure Active Directory for Managed identities creation and usage or for generating service principles for authentication and authorization
• Version Control Experience in building Data Ops i.e. CICD pipelines in Azure DevOps with managed identity
• Unit Testing Experience in writing unit tests for data pipelines
• Data Architecture Knowledge or experience in implementing Kimball style Data Warehouse. Experience in building Metadata with Azure Purview or Data Lake Gen2
• Data Quality Experience in applying Data Quality rules within Azure Data Flow Activities.
• Data Transformation Extensive hands on with Azure Data Flow Activities for Cleansing transforming validation and quality checks
• Azure Cloud Knowledge and confidence in effective communication on Azure Cloud Subscriptions Resource Groups Subnet VNet Private Endpoints testing Firewall rues management on Azure data platform components
• Keen and active interest in the use of data in the wider industry with practical knowledge and networks

Skills & Qualifications

• A creative problem solver who thrives on creating simplicity out of complexity.
• A passion for people and creating environments that enable others to flourish.
• Resilient and comfortable prioritising in demanding situations.
• Highly trustworthy and able to operate with integrity and discretion at all times.
• Energetic and proactive and someone who motivates others by their can do will do attitude.
• Able to operate with minimal brief and a fastmoving set of changing priorities.
• Ability to bring together multiple different views and perspectives to create agreed designs and solutions.

This is just the start. Imagine where you could end up! The journeys yours

What can we do for you

People first. Always. Were passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so thats what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic inspirational supportive. To get a taste of the advantages youll enjoy take a look at all our perks in full here.

Intrigued Our Talent team can tell you everything you need to know about what we want and what were offering so feel free to get in touch.