Senior data Engineer 2 (contract)

Role Summary

This is a hands-on senior data engineering contractor role focused on modernising an existing Azure data platform.

The person will lead a Unity Catalog migration, redesign data orchestration processes, improve platform reliability, and reduce cloud spend.

They will provide technical leadership while remaining heavily involved in architecture, code reviews, and delivery.

This is best suited to someone who has already led Azure Databricks transformation projects in production environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the technical delivery of a data platform modernization programme.
• Own the design and execution of Unity Catalog migration across key data domains.
• Define and implement modern orchestration patterns, replacing legacy workflows.
• Improve performance and reduce costs across Databricks clusters, Spark jobs, storage, and scheduling.
• Establish engineering standards for: CI/CD Testing Monitoring and observability Data quality Production readiness
• Review architecture decisions and critical pull requests.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical guidance.
• Work closely with platform, product, analytics, and business stakeholders.
• Deliver migrations with minimal business disruption.

Must-Have Skills (Non-Negotiable)

• Technical Azure Databricks (expert level)
• Azure Data Factory (ADF)
• SQL
• Python
• Apache Spark
• Cloud platform optimisation and cost reduction
• Data platform migrations or modernization programmes
• Git and modern code review practices
• CI/CD implementation
• Monitoring, observability, and incident management

Experience

• Led delivery of production-grade Azure data platforms.
• Successfully delivered large migration or transformation projects.
• Experience making measurable improvements in performance, reliability, and cloud costs.
• Comfortable operating as a technical lead rather than only an individual contributor.

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Unity Catalog migration experience
• Gaming industry experience
• Game telemetry / event-streaming data experience
• Power BI
• Tableau
• Lakehouse architecture expertise
• Data reliability engineering (DRE) background

Experience Level Guidance

• Ideal Level 8-15+ years in Data Engineering / Data Platform Engineering
• 3-5+ years working heavily with Azure Databricks
• Previous Technical Lead, Lead Data Engineer, Principal Data Engineer, or Data Platform Architect experience

Additional Details

• Location: Atherstone, England
• Duration: 12 months
• Shift Timings: Hybrid (Hours minimum 10-4pm; 3 days / week onsite)
• Pay Range: £255/day to £287/day (PAYE)
• Weekly Schedule: 40 hours