Senior Data Engineer

Senior Data Engineer (various levels available but must be highly technical) | Cutting-Edge Research & AI Platforms | Hybrid (Oxford/London) | up to £130k to 170k + Bonus & Travel The Company

Our client is an ambitious research and technology organisation operating at the intersection of AI, scientific computing and large-scale data engineering. They are building one of the most advanced data platforms in the UK, designed to support AI training, complex research workflows and real-world healthcare applications.

With long-term funding, serious compute, and teams made up of engineers, scientists and ML specialists from top global organisations, they are tackling problems typically seen in big tech and AI labs rather than traditional enterprise environments.

This is a mission-driven organisation with genuine technical depth and a very high engineering bar.

As a Senior Data Engineer, you’ll be a core contributor to the design and delivery of large-scale, production-grade data systems that underpin research and AI across the organisation.

• Building high-throughput, reliable data pipelines for AI and scientific workloads.
• Designing scalable ingestion, processing and data access services.
• Working with large multimodal datasets including imaging, text, sensor and video data.
• Implementing data quality, validation, lineage and observability frameworks.
• Optimising performance, reliability and cost across storage and compute layers.
• Collaborating closely with Research, MLOps and Infrastructure teams.
• Contributing to strong engineering practices including testing, CI/CD and design reviews.

This is backend, platform-focused data engineering, with real ownership of production systems.

You’re an experienced Senior data engineer who enjoys solving hard problems at scale and building systems that others depend on.

• Strong Python engineering skills and solid SQL for large-scale data workloads.
• Experience building and operating distributed data systems in production.
• A systems mindset – thinking about performance, reliability and failure modes.
• Comfort working with complex datasets and asynchronous pipelines.
• Experience collaborating with ML, research or infrastructure teams (highly beneficial).

Titles matter less than impact – they care far more about what you’ve built and how you think.

• Highly competitive salary up to £170,000 depending on experience
• Annual bonus + travel allowance
• Flexible hybrid working (Oxford & London offices, typically 3 days per week)
• Work on one of the most technically ambitious data platforms in the UK
• Direct contribution to AI and healthcare research with real-world impact
• Strong engineering culture with long-term roadmap and funding stability

Reach out if you think you are a good fit.