M

Data Engineer

McCurrach
3 days ago
Remote
United Kingdom
Data Engineer

Data Engineer

CIO Department – Data Team | Avidity

Reports to: Head of Engineering  |  Location: Remote-first / Hybrid  |  Type: Permanent, full-time

About the Role

Avidity is investing in the future of its data platform, and the Data Team within the CIO department is central to that ambition. We are looking for a Data Engineer to help us design, build and operate the next generation of our data infrastructure – a modern, cloud-agnostic platform built around Snowflake and dbt.

This is a genuine opportunity to shape direction rather than simply maintain what exists. You will join us at a pivotal point as we evolve our engineering practice toward a modular, ELT-first architecture. Working closely with analysts, data scientists and business stakeholders, you will build reliable, well-tested and well-documented data products that people across the organisation can trust and use with confidence.

Key Responsibilities

  • Modern data modelling & transformation. Design, build and maintain robust, scalable data transformation pipelines in dbt, producing version-controlled, tested and documented data models on Snowflake.
  • ELT pipeline development. Develop and maintain efficient ELT processes that ingest and integrate data from diverse internal and external sources, prioritising modularity, reusability and maintainability.
  • Data warehousing. Model, structure and curate data in Snowflake to serve analytics, reporting and data science, applying dimensional and modern data-modelling best practice.
  • Performance & cost optimisation. Tune SQL, dbt models and Snowflake warehouse usage to improve query performance, control compute cost and keep processing times low.
  • Data quality & observability. Establish and maintain rigorous data-quality checks, dbt tests and monitoring so that issues are caught early and data can be trusted.
  • Security & governance. Build data solutions that are secure by design, ensuring compliance with global privacy regulations (e.g. UK GDPR) and internal governance standards.
  • Engineering practice. Apply software-engineering discipline to data – version control, code review, CI/CD and automated testing – following Agile ways of working.
  • Collaboration & support. Work with cross-functional teams to understand business needs and deliver data solutions that meet them, and provide ongoing support and timely troubleshooting for pipelines in production.
  • Document architecture, data flows and models so that colleagues and stakeholders have a clear, current understanding of our data platform.

Essential Skills & Experience

We expect strong candidates to bring most of the following:

  • 3+ years' experience in a data engineering role, building and optimising data pipelines and cloud data platforms.
  • Strong, demonstrable command of SQL, including query profiling, optimisation and dynamic T-SQL
  • Hands-on experience with dbt (Core or Cloud) – building models, macros, incremental models, tests and packages.
  • Solid understanding of data warehousing concepts and modern data-modelling practices. Practical experience with Snowflake is essential; strong equivalent cloud data-warehouse experience (e.g. BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks) with willingness to move to Snowflake will also be considered.
  • Proficiency in Python for data engineering tasks (e.g. ingestion, orchestration, automation).
  • Experience with version control (Git) and CI/CD, and a genuine software-engineering mindset applied to data.
  • A degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical industry experience.

Desirable Skills

The following are useful but not essential. Our platform today includes a Microsoft Azure footprint, and we are progressively moving toward a Snowflake- and dbt-centred architecture, so exposure here helps but is not a barrier:

  • Experience with the Azure data ecosystem (Azure Data Factory, Azure SQL Database, Microsoft Fabric).
  • Familiarity with PySpark or distributed data processing.
  • Experience with orchestration tooling (e.g. Airflow, Dagster, Prefect, or Azure DevOps pipelines).
  • Exposure to data-catalogue, lineage or governance tooling.

What We're Looking For

  • Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with an eye for pragmatic, maintainable solutions.
  • The ability to explain complex data concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
  • A collaborative approach – comfortable working with cross-functional teams and external vendors.
  • Self-motivation and the ability to work both independently and as part of a team in a fast-paced, Agile environment.
  • Curiosity and a willingness to help set the technical direction of the team rather than simply follow it.

Why Join Us?

  • Shape the direction. You'll help lead our move to a modern Snowflake and dbt platform, influencing architecture and standards from the ground up.
  • Modern tooling. We're committed to an ELT-first, engineering-led approach with the tools to match.
  • Real impact. Your work will directly inform company strategy and decision-making.
  • Remote-first and hybrid working options.