Associate Data Engineer

Associate Data Engineer

Final date to receive applications: 31 March 2026

Department: Counter

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Manchester/Hybrid

Compensation: £30,000 / year

Please do not apply unless you are eligible for Security Clearance. Ineligible candidates will be automatically rejected. Security Clearance requirements are listed at the bottom of the job description.

Role: Associate Data Engineer

Salary: £30,000

Location: Manchester/Leeds, Hybrid 1-2x a week

Start: April 2026

SE Clearance Required

Summary

Counter, a consultancy brand under the Northcoders group, has a model where we help clients attract, onboard, upskill and integrate graduates into their businesses, in order to give them a seamless start to long and successful careers there.

Counter teams are formed for our clients by deploying a Counter Tech Lead to work within the client’s organisation in order to hire appropriate team members from graduate communities and then to work in collaboration with them directly on the clients projects. Providing support, extra training and all the guidance to fast-track the graduates’ journey within that organisation.

For this engagement, Counter has been contracted to provide a team and will support a Government Department.

The Associate Consultant successful applicants will be offered a flexible fixed term contract by Counter. At the end of that period, you may be given the opportunity to apply for full time roles at the client site.

Please check your commuting distance and viability before applying.

About the Client

The client is in the process of modernising core digital platforms and services.

What We are Looking For

As an Associate Data Engineer, you will play a key part in delivering, supporting and maintaining technical products and platforms. Technical areas of provision include ETL Pipelines, Data Lakes, Data Warehousing, Data Visualisation and Business Intelligence, AI Applications, Machine Learning and LLMs.

A solid technical foundation is key, second only to an enthusiasm and passion for digital technology and innovation. Applicants expressing a proactive approach to work, a strong aptitude to learn new skills and excellent team working principles are exactly who we are looking to provide this opportunity to.

Responsibilities:

• Participate in Agile project delivery
• Build new strategic products
• Configure and support existing platforms and products
• Utilise and extend platform monitoring, alerting, capacity management
• Investigation and resolution of technical issues
• Provide monitoring and support for critical 24/7 services
  • There may be times when support outside of normal working hours is required - organised well ahead of time
• Use a range of collaborative documentation and project management tools such as JIRA and Confluence
• Support integration of AI/ML tooling into existing systems
• Stay well informed of the latest emerging technologies in the AI sector
• Some travel may be required on occasion to engage face to face with other team members within delivery group or external customers/suppliers

Technology Stack (Awareness or Exposure to):

• Database Management Systems and Data warehousing
• Agile methodologies
• Relational and/or dimensional data modelling
• Programming concepts using Java and/or Python
• ETL tooling - eg Talend, Pentaho
• Data visualisation tooling - eg Power BI
• Database querying mechanisms - eg SQL or GQL
• Dev Ops and CI/CD deployment and configuration - eg Terraform, Artifactory, Gitlab/Github, Jenkins/Github Actions
• Distributed computing and database management using Hadoop ecosystem - eg HDFS, YARN, Map Reduce, Spark, Hive, Impala
• UNIX/LINUX like OS level management and configuration concepts - eg Bash scripting, memory/storage management, networking, permissions/access

These are the technologies with which you will develop skills during this role. Any prior awareness or exposure will be beneficial.

Benefits: Pension – 5% employee 3% employer contribution
Employee Assistance Program
Death in Service x2
Flexible working
Optional Private Health Insurance
Shared Parental Leave as well as parental leave policies exceeding the statutory minimum.
Holidays - 5 weeks per year plus Bank Holidays (Pro rata)

Eligibility Criteria:

• Have Permanent Right to Work in The UK
• Be happy to have evidence of Right to work and Enhanced DBS checks completed
• Be eligible for SE Clearance
• Must have lived continuously in the UK for the last 5 years (no break of more than 6 months)