Principal Data Engineer (we have office locations in Cambridge, Leeds and London)

Company Description

Genomics England is a global leader in enabling genomic medicine and research, focused on creating a world where everyone benefits from genomic healthcare. Building on the 100,000 Genomes Project, we support the NHS’s world-first national whole genome sequencing service and run the growing National Genomic Research Library, alongside delivering numerous major genomics initiatives. By connecting research and clinical care at national scale, we enable immediate healthcare benefits and advances for the future.

Our mission is to provide the evidence and digital systems so that by 2035 genomics could play a role in up to half of all healthcare interactions, whilst securing the UK’s position as the best place to discover, prove and benefit from genomic innovations.

We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody.

Behind the Healthcare and Research outcomes, Genomics England delivers through designing, developing and operating complex healthcare software systems.

We're on the cusp of big changes with the real prospect of genomics becoming the fabric of everyday healthcare through the lifetime - from birth to old age.

Job Description

About the role

We’re looking for an experienced Principal Data Engineer with a proven track record of senior technical leadership across Genomics England’s data engineering capability.

This is a senior individual contributor role operating at Principal level, where you will set technical direction and influence data engineering strategy across complex, regulated, national scale clinical and research platforms.

You will shape how we design, build and operate scalable, secure and highly reliable data platforms. This includes defining standards, patterns and data engineering approaches that multiple teams will align to and deliver against.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You will stay close to data engineering, code and delivery where it matters, while also operating at architectural and strategic level to guide direction, influence technical decisions, raise data engineering maturity, and build capability across the organisation.

Working across data engineering, data architecture, product and governance, you will ensure our data platforms are robust, interoperable and aligned to organisational and national priorities, including highly sensitive clinical and research data.

What you will be doing

Setting technical direction and influencing data engineering standards across data platforms, pipelines and data products used by multiple teams

Leading the design and delivery of complex, large scale data solutions across cloud and hybrid environments

Influencing architectural direction for enterprise data platforms, including Lakehouse, distributed and event driven systems

Acting as a technical authority across squads, influencing alignment to data engineering standards and data architectural principles

Working closely with senior engineers, architects, bioinformaticians, data colleagues and product teams to influence delivery and technical decision making

Ensuring all data engineering approaches meet strict governance, privacy, security and regulatory requirements

Driving adoption and influencing use of modern engineering practices including DataOps, DevOps, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automation and observability

Improving platform resilience, performance and operational maturity across critical data systems

Evaluating and influencing adoption of new tools, technologies and data engineering approaches where appropriate

Mentoring experienced data engineers and influencing capability uplift across teams

Contributing to organisation wide technical communities, standards and design governanceWhat we are looking for

Proven experience operating at senior or Principal level in data engineering

Strong track record of designing and successfully delivering enterprise scale data platforms and systems

Deep experience with modern data architecture, cloud infrastructure and scalable data processing systems

Strong hands-on programming experience, i.e. Python and SQL

Strong expertise in data modelling, data lifecycle management, metadata and governance

Experience working in complex regulated environments such as healthcare, genomics or research

Strong understanding of security by design and handling highly sensitive data

Proven ability to influence architectural and data engineering direction across multiple teams or domains

Strong stakeholder engagement skills, with experience influencing senior technical and non-technical stakeholders in matrix environmentsDesirable

Experience with genomics, bioinformatics or clinical data platforms

Familiarity with GA4GH, OMOP or FHIR standards

Experience with orchestrati