Data Engineer

At Severn Trent, our people are at the heart of everything we do. We are in the top 5% of utility companies worldwide for employee engagement, and we’re equally proud of our strong Glassdoor score — reflecting how much our people love working here.

We’re looking for a Staff Data Engineer who ensures that architectural designs and standards are translated into consistent, optimal, and delivery-ready low-level designs across all data delivery streams. The role provides early design assurance, hands‑on technical leadership, and governance of delivery-level design to reduce risk, tech debt, and rework as Severn Trent scales its data platforms. You’ll be based at our Severn Trent Centre head office in Coventry
. You’ll work within our dedicated Data Engineering team of 14. With this being such a critical role, we’re looking for someone who can join us 37 hours a week
, Monday to Friday.

• Provide early delivery design assurance, translating High Level Designs (HLDs) and approved patterns into delivery-ready Low Level Designs (LLDs).
• Ensure designs align with architecture standards, data governance requirements, security controls, and platform guardrails.
• Drive solutions that are fit for purpose, operable, maintainable, and aligned to business outcomes, balancing value, risk, and reusability.
• Act as the first-line design assurance function, escalating only material variances and strategic decisions to Architecture.
• Own the quality and operability of delivery designs across both incumbent and emerging data platforms.
• Operate across data trains, hub teams, mid-tier demand, and small change deliveries, driving consistency in design approaches and engineering practices.
• Identify and promote reuse opportunities, reducing duplication and preventing unnecessary divergence across teams.
• Collaborate with Senior Data Engineers to shape solutions that are optimal for Severn Trent’s data platforms and operating model.
• Provide expert technical leadership, coaching engineers on best‑practice patterns for data ingestion, transformation, storage, and serving.

You’ll join a caring culture that collaborates to achieve, grow, and develop. We value in‑person moments to keep our culture alive but also understand the flexibility working from home can bring. So, you’ll usually find us in the office, but working from home is supported when needed.

• Extensive experience designing and reviewing low‑level designs for modern data platforms in Azure.
• Deep, hands‑on experience using Databricks as a primary data engineering platform.
• Strong understanding of cloud data services (e.g. ADLS, ADF, Synapse, Databricks, Informatica, Azure SQL, Event Hub, Key Vault).
• Experience working in matrix or federated models, including dotted‑line support to local delivery hubs.
• Strong SQL skills and confidence working across raw, curated and consumer‑ready data layers.
• Clear, concise communication with the ability to explain design rationale and trade‑offs to technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• This is an individual contributor role. Where operationally helpful, the role may include limited line management of engineers (e.g., Data Engineers and less experienced Senior Data Engineers) to support development and performance management.

• 28 days holiday + bank holidays (and the ability to buy/sell up to 5 days per year)
• Annual bonus scheme (of up to £2,225, which is subject to eligibility)
• Family‑friendly policies (including a year off fully paid maternity and adoption leave)
• Leading pension scheme – we will double your contribution (up to 15% when you contribute 7.5%)
• Sharesave – the chance to buy Severn Trent plc shares at a discounted rate
• Dedicated training and development with our Academy
• Electric vehicle scheme and retail offers
• Two paid volunteering days per year