Principal Software Development Engineer (Data Engineering)

Within the Data & Analytics team we help Tesco, our customers and the communities where we operate to get the most value from data. We build and run Tesco’s data platforms, we architect and engineer data onto these platforms, provide capabilities and tools to the analytics community across Tesco, and develop data products at scale.

As Principal Software Development Engineer within Data & Analytics you’ll drive the technical direction of one of Tesco’s most strategic technology areas. You’ll work with our engineers, product managers, systems engineers, data scientists and analytics professionals to help move us forward in our technical strategy whilst delivering valuable outcomes for our customers. You’ll work within and across our Data & Analytics teams offering them architectural guidance and support as well as having the freedom to spend time looking ahead and proving out new approaches, technologies and tools. You’ll drive us forward in how we run and operate Data & Analytics at scale.

You will be responsible for

• Defining and driving the development of our technical strategy for evolving our Data & Analytics capabilities.
• Continuously improving our engineering practices across data engineering, data science and analytics to operate at pace and at scale.
• Hands-on delivery of strategic outcomes.
• Contributing to our platform strategy.
• Working across Tesco Technology on wider technical initiatives and strategy.
• Building globally, ensuring consistency in approach across all our locations.
• Inspiring the engineering teams to produce quality solutions.
• Contributing to building a team culture for continuous improvement and an environment where engineers want to work.
• Continually look for how we can evolve and improve our technology, processes and practices.
• Keeping your technical skills up to date and keep track of new technologies, processes, understanding how they might benefit the Technology team and wider Tesco.

Experience relevant for this job:

• Experience working in and across engineering teams in a principal, technical lead or similar role.
• Track record of driving technical change.
• Experience working in a global team distributed across multiple locations.
• Very strong understanding of the Software Development Lifecycle.
• Data schemas and domain modelling, domain driven design, data standards and data architectures (tabular, graph, document, multi-model).
• Strong experience working with distributed computing frameworks such as Spark.
• Strong data engineering experience. Familiarity with streaming patterns and data engineering architectures e.g Kappa and Lambda
• Enterprise integration patterns, microservice architectures and event sourcing.
• ML engineering including feature engineering, versioning and packaging, model training and distribution.
• Containerisation ecosystems and other resource, workflow and orchestration systems.
• Strong experience of automation, configuration management, multi-cloud and hybridisation, IAAS and PAAS

Skills relevant for the job:

• Problem solving, analysis and computational skills. You are comfortable designing systems and reasoning about them. When tackling problems, you take a thorough and logical approach to solving them and you retain ownership through to resolution.
• Customer focus. You can find the right balance between outcome delivery and technical excellence. You place the needs of our customers above the needs of you and the team.
• Written and verbal communication skills. You can communicate effectively and efficiently taking into account the nature of your audience.
• Team player who works collaboratively with other members of the team.
• Ability to influence technical teams and senior stakeholders.

We offer excellent benefits that help make Tesco a great place to work. These include but aren’t limited to:

• Annual bonus scheme of up to 45% of base salary
• Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (plus 8 Bank holidays)
• On-site state of the art gym at our Welwyn Campus with discounted “Gympass” membership & free health checks via Nuffield Health
• Retirement savings plan - save between 6% and 10% and Tesco will match your contribution
• Life Assurance - 5 x contractual pay
• Share Schemes – Join our ‘Buy As You Earn’ & ‘Save As You Earn’ share schemes after 3 months service
• Colleague Clubcard (including a 2nd card for a family member) after 3 months service

About the team:

In the Data and Analytics team, we focus on solving complex business problems enabling the use of data across Tesco and engineering data products that can be deployed at scale to our customers. Our work spans critical business areas including Stores, Online, Fulfilment, CRM and loyalty across the countries where we operate.

Why Tesco?

Our business was built with a simple mission – to be the champion for customers, helping them to enjoy a better quality of life and an easier way of living. This hasn't changed. Customers want great products at great value which they can buy easily and it's our job to deliver this in the right way for them.

In the UK, we serve some 66 shoppers every second, so it's our goal to ensure every one of those customers experiences just a little better service on each visit.

We want our customers to be inspired and whatever they are looking for, we’re finding bigger and better ways to provide it.

We need people who share our ambition to deliver for our customers; passionate and confident people willing to take the initiative and drive us forwards.

If that sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, please get in touch!