Senior Data Engineer

Our client is a warehouse robotics and data company.

Our client is building its first company-wide data capability, and this is its founding hire.

You will build and own the data foundation that brings our various sources together, model them into clean and trustworthy tables, and define the metrics and business concepts so that how we are doing means the same thing to everyone, and so that AI can query our data safely. The first and most important outcome is a reliable, queryable view of customer and site performance against contracted SLAs and KPIs. From that same foundation, you will go on to serve the rest of the business: deployment and billing readiness, finance, product usage and operational efficiency.

This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who is data- and AI-automation savvy, can make the big architectural calls and still ship, and can navigate the genuinely hard part: getting the business to agree on what a site, a customer, or a deployment actually is. You will be a team of one to begin with, setting the standards, proving value quickly with early wins, and shaping the function and team we build around you, with a clear path to lead it.

This will involve a minimum of 2 days a week onsite at our Wallingford facility.

Responsibilities:

• Build the data foundation, bringing operational, product, commercial and contractual data into a single queryable layer, and decide the architecture and system of record for our core concepts: customer, site, deployment and contract
• Embed our client's data security requirements into all foundational architecture and engineering work, ensuring security is a core design principle rather than an afterthought.
• Make customer and site performance answerable on demand by modelling perception accuracy, scan and mission performance, obstructions and scan coverage, connectivity and other operational signals against the SLAs and KPIs we have committed to per site.
• Define the metrics and business definitions with each team so that key terms are consistent and the data is trustworthy. Establish the metrics bible that controls the lens through which AI and reporting interpret our data. You facilitate and codify these definitions rather than owning every one alone.
• Use AI automation to join the dots between systems and to make data genuinely self-serve: connectors and pipelines where needed, and a trustworthy natural-language and query layer so teams get correct, context-aware answers instead of raw-data guesses.
• Partner with the engineering teams, platform, autonomy and perception, to have them expose source data cleanly, rather than building every pipeline yourself. Your focus is on what the data means and how it fits together.
• Own the ongoing health of the foundation: monitor pipelines, fix what breaks when sources change, and protect the trust that makes this the company's source of truth.
• Make pragmatic build-versus-buy decisions, set the engineering standards for the future team, and deliver early, visible wins within the first few months.
• Help define, recruit and mentor the team as the function grows.

Required Qualifications:

• Significant experience as a senior data or analytics engineer, comfortable owning architecture and making source-of-truth decisions independently.
• Strong hands-on data skills: fluent SQL, solid data modelling, and a modern data stack. We are building on Databricks, so experience there or with an equivalent lakehouse or warehouse, plus a transformation framework such as dbt and strong Python, is what we are looking for.
• Demonstrated fluency with AI automation tooling: using LLMs and agents to integrate systems, accelerate delivery and expose data for natural-language querying, with the judgement to control context so the answers stay trustworthy. We want evidence of what you have built, not familiarity with the buzzwords.
• A proven track record in integrating multiple operational and commercial or SaaS systems. For us, that landscape includes Databricks, HubSpot, product analytics via Pendo, fleet and robot telemetry via Grafana, deployment tooling and contractual data.
• The communication and facilitation skills to align non-technical stakeholders on shared definitions and ownership, and the patience to navigate genuinely contentious questions about what our core concepts mean. This matters as much as the technical skill.
• Experience with data quality and, ideally, deduplication or entity resolution concepts, so information stays consistent everywhere it is used.
• A self-starter who thrives as the first or sole engineer in a fast-moving scale-up and wants to grow into leading the function.

Benefits

Starting from the interview process and continuing into your career with us, you will be working by our four Operating Principles:

• Performance: High standards, outstanding results,
• Impact: Big challenges, bigger results
• Commitment: All in, every time
• One team: One mission, shared success

Joining our team and company isn't just about expertise; it's about embracing uncertainty with ambition. We're crafting world-changing solutions, fueled by a passion to redefine what's possible. We will look for you to help create and shape the future of logistics solutions through our products, our culture and our shared vision.

You will also receive:

• Private healthcare via Bupa with 24/7 medical helpline
• Life insurance
• Income protection
• Pension: 4+% employee with option to opt into salary exchange, 5% employer
• Employee Assistance Programme - mental wellbeing, financial and legal advice/support
• 25 holidays per year
• Full meals onsite in Wallingford
• Fun team events on and offsite, snacks of all kinds in the office

AAP/EEO Statement

Our client provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment. It prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, colour, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training