Principal Data Engineer

Responsibilities

• Architecture Partnership: Define and guide the technical architecture for complex, high impact data products and platforms. Manage Solution Architects and act as the natural bridge between Data Engineering and Data Architecture as well as colleagues in wider Technology.
• Standards Setting: Establish engineering and architectural patterns, coding standards, and best practices adopted across multiple squads.
• Assurance & Excellence: Embed rigorous validation, profiling, reconciliation, and automated testing into all engineering work; lead monitoring, observability, and performance optimisation to ensure resilient, reliable data products.

Requirements

• Essential criteria:
• Technical Mastery: Deep expertise in cloud data engineering, distributed processing, and enterprise-scale data architecture. Excellent GCP/Python and/or Node JS 8+ knowledge, and CI/CD experience (ideally with Jenkins).
• Advanced SQL: Master-level proficiency in SQL (ideally BigQuery ), with strong optimisation and performance-tuning skills. Experience following coding standards and performing peer code reviews.
• Data Modelling & Insight: Strong capability in designing intuitive, scalable data models and semantic layers aligned to business meaning; skilled in advanced data profiling, anomaly detection, and statistical reasoning to ensure data integrity.
• Collaboration: Able to influence senior stakeholders, simplify complex concepts, and build strong cross-functional relationships.
• Technical Leadership: Expert in data quality frameworks, governance standards, and secure handling of sensitive data; connects engineering choices to long-term platform strategy, organisational goals, and future scalability.
• Benefits and perks:
• There's one thing people can't stop talking about when it comes to life at Sky: the perks . Here's a taster:
• Free Sky TV or NOW package , including Sky Sports and Sky Cinema
• Pension package with up to 9% employer contribution
• Private healthcare with mental health support
• Aviva Digital GP and dental insurance
• Discounts on Sky products, including Sky Mobile, Sky Broadband, Sky Glass and Sky Protect
• Sharesave and Tech schemes
• A range of Sky VIP rewards and experiences
• How you'll work:
• We've adopted a hybrid working approach to give more flexibility on where and how we work. The hybrid working expectations for this role are 2 days in the offic

Benefits

Additional Information

We don't just believe in better. We make it happen. Better content. Better products. And better careers. Working in Tech, Product or Data at Sky is about building the next and the new. From broadband to broadcast, streaming to mobile, Sky Stream to Sky Glass, we never stand still. We optimise and innovate. We turn big ideas into the products, content and services millions of people love. And we do it all right here at Sky. Team overview : Our vision is to enable Sky's growth ambitions though Data and AI: deepening customer relationships, optimising commercial performance, and enhancing operational efficiency. Principal Engineers operate within defined domains and provide leadership to our Solution Architects. With deep technical expertise , they act as Technical Leads, shaping future ‑ ready frameworks that support our strategic objectives . They set, evolve, and uphold engineering standards across the team, continually raising the bar for quality, innovation, and delivery. As a senior role, Principal Engineers play a critical part in connecting Data Engineering with wider Technology and Architecture functions. They work collaboratively across teams to ensure alignment, consistency, and shared direction, enabling us to deliver our data strategy effectively and at scale.

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