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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Principal Data Engineer (we have office locations in Cambridge, Leeds and London) - **Company:** Genomics England - **Location:** Leeds, UK (Remote available) - **Salary:** £103,500.0 - **Contract:** Temporary contract - **Skills:** Java (Programming Language), Airflow, Bash Shell, Bioinformatics, Clinical Data Repository, Cloud Computing, Encodings, Computer Programming, Continuous Integration, Information Engineering, Data Security, Data Systems, DevOps, Information Lifecycle Management, Interoperability, Metadata, DataOps, Software Engineering, Data Streaming, Data Storage Technologies, Cloud Platform System, Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, System Availability, Event Driven Architecture, Kubernetes, Infrastructure Automation Frameworks, AWS Glue, Data Management, Programming Languages - **Published:** October 1, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.cv-library.co.uk/job/225657394/Principal-Data-Engineer-we-have-office-locations-in-Cambridge-Leeds-and-London ## About the Role You'll bring substantial data engineering experience and the technical depth to operate at Principal level. Just as importantly, you'll be comfortable working across teams and organisational boundaries, bringing people together around technical decisions and communicating effectively with stakeholders at different levels. What you'll bring * Proven ability to operate at Principal level within data engineering, combining deep technical expertise with experience shaping technical and architectural direction across multiple teams * The ability to communicate complex technical decisions and trade-offs clearly, build trusted relationships and work collaboratively with technical and non-technical stakeholders across a matrix environment * Extensive experience designing and delivering complex, enterprise-scale data platforms and systems, from initial design through to production * Deep knowledge of modern data engineering, cloud infrastructure and scalable data storage and processing, alongside strong hands-on programming experience. * Strong knowledge of data modelling and the wider data lifecycle, including metadata, provenance, governance and approaches to interoperability * Experience designing secure and resilient systems for sensitive or highly governed data, ideally within a complex, regulated environment such as healthcare, genomics or research * A strong understanding of modern software engineering practices, including CI/CD, automation, infrastructure as code and platform reliability, with experience establishing reusable patterns and sustainable engineering approaches * A collaborative approach to technical leadership, with experience mentoring engineers, sharing knowledge and supporting the development of others * A Master's degree, or equivalent experience, with a specialism in data or infrastructure You do not need to come from a genomics background. Experience working with complex, sensitive data in a highly governed environment will be important in this role. It would be helpful, but not essential, if you have experience with * Genomic, bioinformatics or clinical data platforms, including formats such as VCF, BAM or FASTQ * Standards such as GA4GH, OMOP or FHIR * Orchestration technologies such as Airflow, Prefect or AWS Glue * Lakehouse or data mesh approaches, and batch, streaming, distributed or event-driven architectures * Secure Data Environments, federated research platforms or clinical systems * Additional programming languages such as Scala, Java or Shell/Bash, * A Master's degree, or equivalent experience, with a specialism in data or infrastructure ## Description At Genomics England, we're looking for an experienced Principal Data Engineer to help shape the future of data engineering across our organisation. Our data supports clinical and research use at national scale. Behind this sits a complex engineering challenge: creating secure, resilient and scalable platforms that enable highly sensitive genomic and health data to be used responsibly and effectively. This is where you will make a difference As Principal Data Engineer, you'll provide senior technical leadership across our data engineering capability. You'll help us make thoughtful, sustainable technology choices, establish effective data engineering practices and build robust platforms that teams can confidently develop and operate. This is a Principal individual contributor role with meaningful scope to influence how data engineering develops across Genomics England. Working across teams and technical domains, you'll shape direction, provide architectural guidance and remain closely involved in hands-on engineering and delivery. You'll collaborate with data engineers, architects, bioinformaticians, product teams, governance colleagues and senior stakeholders to solve complex data engineering challenges across our clinical and research data platforms. You'll also lead the development of our wider data engineering capability, helping to shape how we grow and strengthen data engineering practices across the organisation. Through mentoring, technical guidance and knowledge sharing, you'll support colleagues to grow their expertise and help teams adopt consistent, sustainable approaches to data engineering. Why this role matters The data platforms behind our clinical and research work need to be secure, reliable and designed for the long term. As Principal Data Engineer, you'll have the opportunity to shape how we approach those challenges across the organisation. You'll influence data engineering beyond a single team while remaining close to the technology and contributing directly to delivery. Your impact will be seen not only in the platforms and solutions you help create, but in the engineering practices you establish, the decisions you help shape and the colleagues you support to develop. Ultimately, your work will help us build sustainable data engineering capability and enable the responsible use of complex clinical, genomic and research data. What you'll be doing * Providing technical leadership across our data engineering capability, helping shape strategic and technical direction, roadmaps and sustainable technology choices * Setting clear standards, patterns and practices for secure, scalable and reliable data platforms, pipelines and data products * Leading and contributing hands-on to the design and delivery of complex data solutions across cloud and hybrid environments * Providing architectural guidance across areas such as Lakehouse, distributed and event-driven systems * Working collaboratively across engineering, architecture, bioinformatics, product and governance to solve complex technical challenges * Promoting interoperability, open standards, data modelling, metadata and provenance, supporting the responsible and effective use of data * Embedding privacy, security and regulatory requirements into platforms handling sensitive clinical and research data * Strengthening engineering practices and platform resilience through DataOps, DevOps, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automation, observability and security by design * Evaluating emerging technologies and helping teams make thoughtful, appropriate and sustainable technology choices * Mentoring experienced engineers, sharing knowledge and contributing to technical communities and design groups to help develop capability across the organisation ## Related Videos - [From Messy Queries to Scalable Systems - How Data Engineering actually works](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100203-from-messy-queries-to-scalable-systems-how-data-engineering-actually-works) - [Fully Orchestrating Databricks from Airflow](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/336-fully-orchestrating-databricks-from-airflow) - [Shifting Stress to Progress— Understanding DevOps to do DevOps Better](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/268-shifting-stress-to-progress-understanding-devops-to-do-devops-better) - [Modern Data Architectures need Software Engineering](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1030-modern-data-architectures-need-software-engineering) - [From DevOps to Scaled DevOps: How We’re Rebuilding Continuous Delivery as a Platform](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100018-from-devops-to-scaled-devops-how-we-re-rebuilding-continuous-delivery-as-a-platform) - [AI Model Management Life Circles: ML Ops For Generative AI Models From Research to Deployment](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1152-ai-model-management-life-circles-ml-ops-for-generative-ai-models-from-research-to-deployment) ## Related Articles - [Data Engineer Salary UK](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/253-data-engineer-salary-uk) - [Data Analyst Salary in the UK](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/278-data-analyst-salary-in-the-uk) - [Software Engineer Salary London](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/252-software-engineer-salary-london) - [Software Engineer Salary in The UK](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/231-software-engineer-salary-in-the-uk) - [Fullstack Developer Salary UK](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/251-fullstack-developer-salary-uk) - [The 12 Best Jobs for Software Engineers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/401-the-12-best-jobs-for-software-engineers)