Wood Mackenzie is the global data and analytics business for the renewables energy and natural resources industries. Enhanced by technology. Enriched by human an ever-changing world companies and governments need reliable and actionable insight to lead the transition to a sustainable future. Thats why we cover the entire supply chain with unparalleled breadth and depth backed by over 50 years experience. Our team of over 2400 experts operating across 30 global locations are enabling customers decisions through real-time analytics consultancy events and thought leadership. Together we deliver the insight they need to separate risk from opportunity and make confident decisions when it matters most.
Wood Mackenzie Values
Job title: Senior Software Engineer
Reports to: Engineering Manager
Location: Edinburgh
Band: E
Wood Mackenzie is a global leader in data analytics delivering expert analysis and insights into the worlds natural resources. With a presence spanning the globe we empower our clients to make informed impactful decisions.
Were building a next-generation data analysis and visualization platforms that help our customers drive billion-dollar decisions while accelerating the transition to a more sustainable future.
Were seeking a talented Senior Software Engineer to join our Avatar team. This dynamic group plays a crucial role in bringing our industry-leading data and cutting-edge data science models to our internal customers enabling them to deliver exceptional value.
Role Overview
Were looking for a Senior Software Engineer Data Science Infrastructure & Optimization to join our team! This is a critical technical role where youll build and scale high-performance data infrastructure that powers our data science and modelling capabilities. Youll own the entire data lifecycle for modellingfrom ingestion and transformation to automated schedulingworking with large-scale environmental datasets (like historical and forecasted weather data) that serve our entire organization. Youll enable seamless cross-functional data exchange collaborate with engineering teams to ensure data flows in the right formats and create self-service tools that empower data scientists to focus on what they do best: analysis and insights.
What Youll Do
1. Data Ingestion Transformation Delivery & Maintenance (35%)
Own and continuously improve data ingestion and transformation pipelines for large-scale climate and renewables datasets (weather data renewable generation data) ensuring quality and timely delivery across the business
Facilitate cross-functional data exchange by ingesting and transforming datasets from other engineering teams and delivering them to stakeholders in their required formats
Build and deploy self-service infrastructure components (AWS Lambda functions Glue/Athena tables computing infrastructure) that make data access and preparation seamless for data scientists
Govern and manage large datasets across AWS environments including data versioning and resolving quality issues for internal users
2. High-Performance Engineering & Code Acceleration (35%)
Design and implement optimization strategies for large-scale data processing and complex modeling tasks leveraging parallelization and distributed computing tools like Dask for maximum performance and efficiency
Partner with data scientists to develop new code and scripts refactoring them into maintainable efficient and reusable functions that prevent future bottlenecks
Create shared code frameworks templates and internal libraries that enforce best practices contribute to company-wide tooling and accelerate data science workflows
3. Data Quality Testing & Standards (20%)
Define and implement comprehensive data quality assurance processes including validity checks and proactive diagnosis and resolution of production issues
Build and maintain robust unit and BDD (Behave) test suites that validate complex transformation and modeling logic
Mentor data scientists on code structure effective testing practices and engineering standards
4. Architectural Leadership & Collaboration (10%)
Work closely with internal teams and end-users to understand their needs address technical challenges and co-design scalable architectural solutions that serve the broader organization
What Youll Bring
Experience in Data Engineering or software engineering supporting data science or research teams
Advanced Python proficiency and expert-level experience with distributed computing frameworks (e.g. PySpark Dask)
Strong hands-on experience with AWS services for data processing (Step Functions Lambda Batch S3 Athena)
Deep knowledge of software engineering best practices including design patterns refactoring infrastructure as code containerization and CI/CD pipelines
Proven experience writing comprehensive test suites (unit integration and behavioural/Behave tests)
Equal Opportunities
We are an equal opportunities employer. This means we are committed to recruiting the best people regardless of their race colour religion age sex national origin disability or protected veteran status. You can find out more about your rights under the law at
If you are applying for a role and have a physical or mental disability we will support you with your application or through the hiring process.
Required Experience:
Senior IC
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