Data Engineer

We are building an AI centre of excellence internally whilst re-architecting parts of our technology estate away from legacy systems towards a modern technology platform on Azure. As part of this growth, we’re now looking for a Data Engineer to take ownership of the data foundation behind our AI, reporting and future technology platforms.

Why this role is different

This is a newly created role, giving you the opportunity to take ownership of an area that hasn’t previously had a dedicated Data Engineer. Data sits at the heart of our AI products, reporting and wider technology transformation, and you’ll play a key role in making sure it is reliable, secure and fit for the future.

The overall data strategy is already defined by our IT Director. Your role is to run with it - turning the strategy into working pipelines and platforms, owning the data engineering estate day-to-day and helping refine it as our technology develops.

You’ll report to our Head of Development, working closely with our AI Developer and colleagues across the wider technology team. You’ll have plenty to get your teeth into from day one, from improving our existing data warehouse and reporting environment to building the new data foundations behind our AI strategy. We’re looking for someone who wants genuine ownership and responsibility, and who wants to see the tangible impact of their work.

What You’ll Be Doing:

· Deliver our data strategy: how we extract case data from our case management estate, where it lands, and what the target data platform looks like are questions the strategy answers. Your job is to run with the strategy, build what it describes, and support and refine it as the estate evolves.

• Design least-privilege, read-only access patterns and query workloads that never put load on the live production system the firm depends on.
• Build and maintain the datasets our AI work depends on, including taking our golden dataset of completed matters from a manual exercise to a versioned, access-controlled, anonymised and repeatable pipeline, along with the evaluation data that tells us whether our AI is getting better.
• Replace a legacy management information warehouse built on stored procedures with modern, documented pipelines and reporting that is trusted throughout the business.
• Support the data needs of new platform builds and integrations as our legacy estate is replaced.
• Monitor data quality, lineage, retention and pseudonymisation to a standard that stands up in a regulated firm handling sensitive client data.
• Maintain documentation so your pipelines and datasets are well understood and can be built upon by others.
• Stay current with data engineering tooling and practice, identifying opportunities to improve how we manage and move data, * A newly created role with genuine ownership - you’ll be the first dedicated Data Engineer at PLS and will have the opportunity to shape how we build and manage data
• A key role in our AI strategy, working alongside our AI Developer and technology leadership team as we build out our AI capability
• The opportunity to make a visible impact - you’ll be solving real data problems that are already affecting how our technology and reporting work today
• A modern, collaborative environment withstrong backing from the CEO and COO,where ideas are heard and hierarchy doesn’t get in the way of good thinking
• Join a growing, tech-driven law firm with a genuine focus on innovation.
• Long-term development opportunities including study support options (employer-funded after 12- months).
• 25 days AL + Bank Holidays, with buy/carry over options
• Employee benefits: death in service, healthcare plan, EAP, counselling, and salary sacrifice
• Extras: free conveyancing, mortgage advice, staff discounts

We’re looking for an experienced, hands-on Data Engineer who enjoys ownership rather than simply being given tickets to complete. We’d expect you to have around 4-6+ years of genuine hands-on Data Engineering experience, although we’re much more interested in what you’ve actually owned and delivered than the number of years on your CV., * Strong SQL - genuinely comfortable with complex queries, performance tuning, data modelling and stored procedures, with the judgement to understand the impact of querying production systems

• Python for data pipeline and automation work
• Experience owning production data pipelines end-to-end: built them, monitored them, fixed them when they broke
• Experience working with SQL Server, Azure SQL or similar production database environments
• Genuine sense of ownership and accountability - when something goes wrong with a data pipeline or data integrity issue, you’re the person who wants to understand why and fix it
• Comfortable working with ambiguity and taking ownership of loosely defined problems
• Strong communication skills and the confidence to work with both technical colleagues and non-technical stakeholders
• An understanding of the importance of security, data quality and responsible handling of confidential information

Desirable:

• Experience working with cloud data technologies - Azure experience would be beneficial, but we’re open to candidates with transferable experience from other cloud platforms
• Progress OpenEdge experience
• Databricks, Spark or PySpark experience
• Experience feeding data into AI systems, including RAG pipelines, vector stores, embedding workflows, or using Azure AI Foundry or similar AI/data platforms
• Event-driven pipelines and Azure Service Bus or similar messaging technologies
• Experience within legal, professional services or another regulated environment
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot or similar

PLS Solicitors is a well-established and growing law firm with a strong reputation within the conveyancing industry and significant ongoing investment in technology, AI, and platform modernisation.