DATA ENGINEERING AND BIG DATA
TALENT SOLUTIONS
Processing Big Data has become crucial to countless businesses. Those who decide to pursue a career within Big Data face complex development challenges, too tough for relational database systems. After all, there is no Data Science without Data Engineers.
Whilst businesses may have vast quantities of data at the ready, it holds no real value unless it can be stored, harnessed and utilised. It’s estimated that most UK companies have at least 100 terabytes of data stored which could be used for various purposes around the business, as well as newly accessible hard-to-process sources such as web data, image data, and social media data.
This is where those who work in Data Engineering become extremely valuable, as they develop Data Platforms that allow this kind of volume to be processed and used by Data Scientists and analysts across the business.
WHY
HARNHAM?
OUR
SERVICES
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Permanent and Contract Recruitment: We offer both permanent and contract recruitment solutions, adapting flexibly to support the dynamic requirements of your Big Data and Data Engineering projects.
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Executive Search: Our executive search service focuses on identifying and securing top-tier leaders in the Data Engineering domain who can advance your strategic goals and technological advancements.
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Industry-Specific Expertise: Our operations span multiple industries, providing specialized recruitment solutions tailored to the distinctive challenges and opportunities of your sector.
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Contact us today to discover how our custom talent solutions can bolster your organization's Data Engineering prowess.
JOBS
LATEST
OPPORTUNITIES
Harnham are a specialist Data & AI recruitment business with teams that only focus on niche areas.
Lead Data Engineer
$175000 - $200000
+ Data Engineering
PermanentUSA
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Lead Data Engineer
Compensation: $175,000-$200,000 base salary, based on experience, location, and fit.
Work authorization: Must be authorized to work in the U.S.; no visa sponsorship or transfers available.
The Role
You’ll lead a team of data engineers while helping build and operate the data platform behind healthcare analytics products and internal reporting. This role combines people leadership with hands-on engineering across scalable ELT pipelines, data modeling, reliability, observability, and governance. You’ll partner with product, analytics, engineering, and healthcare stakeholders to turn complex operational and healthcare data into trusted, analytics-ready datasets.
Responsibilities
– Lead, mentor, and set technical standards for a data engineering team.
– Build and maintain ELT pipelines using Python, SQL, dbt, and Airflow; Dagster or Astronomer experience is also relevant.
– Develop reliable ingestion and transformation workflows for healthcare and transactional data.
– Design and optimize data models, curated tables, and reusable dbt models.
– Work extensively with PostgreSQL and contribute to data architecture decisions.
– Improve data quality, lineage, monitoring, alerting, documentation, and incident response.
– Optimize pipeline performance, scalability, reliability, and cost.
– Establish standards for testing, deployment, security, version control, and data governance.
– Contribute directly to development and long-term platform strategy.
Required Qualifications
– 5+ years of experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, software engineering, or a related field.
– 1+ year leading, mentoring, or serving as a technical lead for data engineers.
– Strong production Python and advanced SQL skills.
– Hands-on dbt experience, including models, tests, documentation, and deployments.
– Experience with Airflow; Dagster and/or Astronomer are also considered.
– Strong PostgreSQL experience, including schema design and query tuning.
– Experience designing and operating ELT pipelines.
– Experience working with transactional data, such as claims, billing, enrollment, payments, or application events.
– Healthcare-data experience and familiarity with its privacy, quality, and governance requirements.
– Working knowledge of MPP database concepts, including distributed query processing, partitioning, and performance at scale.
Nice to Have
– Experience with Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, Databricks, or Azure Synapse.
– Healthcare domain exposure: claims, clinical, provider, member, payer, pharmacy, eligibility, or revenue-cycle data.
– Experience with HIPAA-regulated or other sensitive data.
– Familiarity with observability, lineage, cataloging, governance, or data-quality tools.
– Exposure to CI/CD, infrastructure as code, containers, or cloud-native data platforms.
– Experience building self-service data products in a SaaS, analytics, healthcare-tech, or growth-stage environment.

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Director of Engineering
Cambridge
$240000 - $270000
+ Data Engineering
PermanentCambridge, Massachusetts
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Director of Engineering
Cambridge, MA (Hybrid) | $250,000 to $270,000 + 20% Bonus + Equity
Join a venture-backed technology company using AI, machine learning, and large-scale real-world data to build innovative products in a highly regulated industry. This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll help scale a growing engineering function while remaining close to the technology.
The Company
They are an early-stage biotech business developing data-driven products that turn complex datasets into actionable insights. With strong funding and ambitious growth plans, they are investing in both their platform and engineering team as they scale.
The Role
- Lead, mentor, and grow a team of software engineers
- Own engineering delivery, processes, and technical standards
- Contribute directly to architecture and production code
- Build scalable applications and cloud-based systems
- Improve CI/CD, testing, observability, and platform reliability
- Partner with Product and leadership to drive execution
- Support hiring and future team growth
Your Skills & Experience
- Strong engineering leadership experience in startup or high-growth environments
- Hands-on expertise with Python, React, and AWS or GCP
- Experience building scalable backend systems and applications
- Strong knowledge of CI/CD and modern software delivery practices
- Exposure to AI, healthcare, data platforms, or regulated environments is beneficial
What They Offer
- $240,000 to $270,000 base salary
- 20% annual bonus
- Equity package
- Significant ownership and influence on engineering strategy
- Opportunity to help build and scale the organisation
How to Apply
If you’re a hands-on engineering leader who enjoys building teams, scaling technology, and driving delivery, we’d love to hear from you.

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Data Engineer
Dallas
$220000 - $275000
+ Data Engineering
PermanentDallas, Texas
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Vice President, Data Engineering
Dallas, TX | $230K-$300K total compensation (includes bonus)
This is a high-impact leadership opportunity to shape enterprise-wide data platforms within a globally scaled, highly regulated environment. You will play a central role in standardising financial and risk data across divisions, combining hands-on engineering with strategic leadership in a true player-coach capacity.
The Company
Globally recognised financial services organisation operating at significant scale across investment banking, asset management and trading. Their centralised engineering function supports critical areas including finance, risk and compliance. The business is investing heavily in data platform convergence, governance and regulatory readiness, with a clear mandate to standardise and unify data across the organisation. This creates a unique opportunity to influence transformation at scale.
The Role
You will lead the design and delivery of modern data engineering platforms that enable consistent, governed financial data across multiple business units. Your responsibilities will include:
* Leading architecture and development of scalable data pipelines and platforms
* Driving data standardisation across finance, risk and treasury functions
* Improving data lineage, governance and regulatory reporting alignment
* Acting as a hands-on technical lead, including code reviews and system design
* Supporting the adoption of cloud-based data platforms using AWS and distributed processing tools
Your Skills & Experience
* Strong commercial experience in data engineering and backend systems
* Expertise in distributed data processing using Spark or similar technologies
* Experience with cloud platforms, particularly AWS and tools such as Databricks or Glue
* Proven capability in designing data models for financial or regulatory systems
* Strong system design and architecture skills
* Experience leading or mentoring engineering teams in complex environments
* Background in financial services or another highly regulated domain
What They Offer
* Competitive VP-level package with total compensation typically between $275K and $300K
* Bonus and equity as part of a comprehensive rewards structure
* Opportunity to lead large-scale data transformation across critical financial systems
* Clear progression within a global engineering organisation
* Exposure to senior stakeholders and high-impact regulatory initiatives

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Lead Data Engineer
City of London
£70000 - £85000
+ Data Engineering
PermanentCity of London, London
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Lead Data Engineer
London (4 days per week in the office) | £85,000
This is a rare opportunity to build and lead a Data Engineering function within a rapidly growing AI and data-focused technology business. You’ll take ownership of engineering standards, team development, and platform-critical data infrastructure while remaining hands-on with the most impactful technical challenges.
The Company
They are an innovative SaaS organisation that helps businesses transform complex data into actionable insights. Operating across a range of industries, they deliver advanced data and AI solutions that support commercial decision-making and customer growth.
With multiple products already in market and further AI-driven solutions under development, they are investing heavily in their data capabilities as they continue to scale. This is a high-growth environment where technology plays a central role in the company’s success.
The Role
As Lead Data Engineer, you will be responsible for establishing and leading the Data Engineering function while working closely with senior stakeholders across technology, product, and data teams.
Key responsibilities include:
- Defining Data Engineering standards, processes, and best practices across the organisation.
- Leading, mentoring, and developing a growing team of Data Engineers.
- Designing and delivering scalable ETL and ELT pipelines across operational, analytical, and AI workloads.
- Taking ownership of cloud-based data platforms and modern data architecture.
- Driving improvements in data modelling, platform performance, and engineering quality.
- Leading CI/CD practices, deployment processes, and engineering governance.
- Collaborating with Data Science and AI teams to productionise machine learning outputs.
- Identifying opportunities to leverage AI-enabled development tools across the engineering lifecycle.
- Implementing monitoring, validation, and governance frameworks to ensure reliable data delivery.
Your Skills & Experience
- Commercial experience leading or managing Data Engineering teams.
- Strong SQL and Python development skills.
- Expertise building and maintaining scalable ETL and ELT pipelines.
- Strong understanding of data modelling and modern data architecture principles.
- Experience working with Azure, AWS and/or GCP cloud platforms.
- Knowledge of Git, CI/CD, DevOps practices, and deployment workflows.
- Experience improving engineering standards, processes, and team capabilities.
- Ability to work effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Interest in AI-enabled engineering practices and modern data platforms.
What They Offer
- Direct exposure to senior technology leadership.
- Opportunity to build and shape an entire Data Engineering function.
- Work on cutting-edge AI and data products with real commercial impact.
- Clear progression opportunities as the business continues to grow and expand.
How to Apply
If you’re a Lead Data Engineer looking to combine hands-on technical leadership with the opportunity to build a function from the ground up, apply today to learn more about this exciting opportunity.

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Senior Data Engineer
Chicago
$130000 - $150000
+ Data Engineering
PermanentChicago, Illinois
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Senior Analytics Engineer
Chicago, IL (Hybrid)
$110,000 – $150,000 + Bonus
A fast-growing financial services company is looking for a Senior Analytics Engineer to join a high-impact, business-facing data team. This role sits at the intersection of analytics engineering and data engineering, with a strong focus on SQL, data modeling, and building trusted datasets from complex source systems.
This is a hands-on position where you will work directly with raw data, design scalable data models, and take full ownership of pipelines from ingestion through to business-ready outputs. The environment is fast-paced and requires someone comfortable operating with ambiguity, solving problems independently, and working closely with stakeholders across the business.
The Role
- Build and own end-to-end data pipelines from ingestion through staging to curated data marts
- Work directly with raw and imperfect data, identifying and resolving data quality issues upstream
- Design and implement scalable data models to support analytics and business decision-making
- Write complex, high-performance SQL to transform and validate data
- Develop and maintain workflows using modern data tools and orchestration frameworks
- Investigate and debug data issues across systems, ensuring accuracy and reliability
- Implement data quality checks and monitoring to prevent downstream issues
- Partner with business stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver trusted datasets
Requirements
- 5+ years of experience in analytics engineering or data engineering
- Advanced SQL skills including joins, window functions, and performance optimization
- Strong experience with data modeling, including building marts from raw data
- Hands-on experience with Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, and modern ELT workflows
- Proficiency in Python for data processing and automation
- Experience working with cloud platforms, ideally AWS
- Ability to work independently and solve problems in ambiguous environments
- Strong communication skills and experience working with non-technical stakeholders
Nice to Have
- Experience in financial services or other data-intensive industries
- Exposure to database performance tuning, indexing, and query optimization
- Experience working with messy or poorly documented data sources
This is an opportunity to join a lean, high-performing team where data plays a central role in driving business decisions. The role offers strong ownership, visibility, and the chance to build scalable data solutions from the ground up.

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GCP DevOps Engineer
London
£550 - £650
+ Data Engineering
ContractLondon
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Senior DevOps Engineer (GCP)
£550 – £650 per day
UK Remote
This is an opportunity to play a pivotal role in the build of a next-generation AI data platform. The project focuses on creating a scalable, secure, and highly automated cloud foundation that enables enterprise-grade AI use cases, supporting large-scale data processing and high-availability access services.
The Company
They are a technology-driven organisation investing in modern cloud infrastructure to support advanced AI and data products. Their focus is on delivering secure, scalable, and reliable platforms that enable long-term innovation. As part of a major transformation programme, they are building a cloud-native environment designed to support significant data volumes and mission-critical services. This engagement offers the chance to influence key architectural decisions and leave a lasting impact on the platform.
The Role and Deliverables
- Own the shared Google Cloud Platform foundation supporting multiple platform services and data products.
- Provision and maintain development, QA, and production environments using Terraform.
- Design and implement automated CI/CD pipelines, deployment workflows, rollback processes, and recovery procedures.
- Establish secure cloud infrastructure including IAM, secrets management, networking, and tenant isolation controls.
- Build observability capabilities through monitoring, logging, alerting, and reliability tooling.
- Create operational documentation, runbooks, and deliver knowledge transfer to support successful handover.
Your Skills & Experience
- Strong hands-on experience designing and managing enterprise-scale Google Cloud Platform environments.
- Advanced capability with Terraform and Infrastructure as Code best practices.
- Experience with Docker, OCI-compatible container technologies, and cloud-native compute services.
- Expertise building and maintaining modern CI/CD pipelines using tools such as GitHub Actions or GitLab CI.
- Strong understanding of security, IAM, cloud networking, secrets management, and security scanning tools.
- Proven ability to implement monitoring, logging, alerting, and platform observability solutions.
- Experience working across complex cloud ecosystems, including integration with other cloud platforms and modern data technologies.
- Ability to document solutions clearly and support operational handover to internal teams.
How to Apply
If you are a Senior DevOps Engineer with strong GCP and Terraform expertise and are looking to contribute to a high-impact AI platform project, please apply today.

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Public Cloud Architect
Dallas
$190000 - $225000
+ Data Engineering
PermanentDallas, Texas
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About the Opportunity
Are you a hands-on architect who thrives on building high-performance, automated private cloud infrastructure at a massive scale?
We are partnering with a large global technology and semiconductor manufacturing giant headquartered in Dallas, TX. Boasting over $17B+ in recent annual revenue and currently executing an aggressive $60B+ domestic infrastructure expansion, this organization is anchoring the future of global tech manufacturing.
We are seeking a Principal Private Cloud Architect to serve as the critical connective layer between their massive enterprise compute, storage, and network infrastructure. Reporting directly to the Director of Public + Private Cloud, this is a 100% hands-on role requiring a blend of deep platform engineering, SRE expertise, and architectural vision.
There is a recognized gap at both the engineering and architect levels; the current team leans heavily on policy and compliance, so we need a deeply technical builder who can establish high-performance infrastructure and true technical depth.
Note on Focus: This is a pure Private Cloud, Data Center Infrastructure, and Infrastructure-as-Code role. If you are looking for a strategy-heavy, pure public cloud role, this is not the right fit.
Key Responsibilities
- Bridge the Infrastructure: Act as the ultimate connective tissue between existing enterprise compute and storage hardware, ensuring the network layer is optimized and ready for next-gen workloads.
- Automate Everything: Drive an “Infrastructure as Code” mindset across the organization, focusing heavily on treating Kubernetes as code and implementing heavy automation (Terraform or similar).
- Architect & Engineer: Maintain absolute technical depth. You will not just draw diagrams; you will write code, build an internal “AWS-like” self-service developer platform, and actively engineer the platform.
- Secure by Design: Architect robust, end-to-end security frameworks directly into the infrastructure fabric from a design perspective, going beyond mere policy to implement zero-trust concepts.
Required Technical Expertise
- Experience: Minimum 8+ years of deep private cloud and enterprise data center infrastructure background.
- Container Platforms: Advanced mastery of Kubernetes as code, with production experience deploying enterprise container platforms like OpenShift or SUSE Rancher.
- Data & Streaming Ecosystems: Hands-on experience leveraging Kafka and Spark for distributed data processing and platform integration.
- Automation / IaC: Strong proficiency with Terraform or similar automation frameworks.
- Advanced Networking: Deep understanding of data center networking, including L2/L3, EVPN/VXLAN, SDN, and load balancing.
- Hybrid Integration: Proven ability to connect massive on-prem footprints to public cloud providers (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
Preferred/Nice-to-Haves
- Experience designing for High-Performance Computing (HPC) or GPU-based workloads.
- Familiarity with observability tools (Grafana, Prometheus) and GitOps frameworks.
What We Are NOT Looking For
- Pure public cloud architects who do not have a background in bare-metal or data center infrastructure.
- High-level strategists or policy-heavy managers who no longer possess deep, hands-on engineering capabilities.
- Candidates lacking practical Platform Engineering or SRE experience.

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Director of Analytics
$200000 - $235000
+ Data Engineering
PermanentUSA
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DIRECTOR OF ANALYTICS
LOGISTICS
Fully remote within the United States.
Candidates must work primarily Eastern Time hours.
Leads an analytics organization of 10+ people.
ROLE OVERVIEW
A B2B travel SaaS company is hiring a Director of Analytics to lead internal analytics and customer-facing data products.
This person will support Sales, GTM, Transactions, Operations, and FP&A. They will also own customer reporting products focused on travel spend, sustainability, policy compliance, and program performance.
The company is investing in AI-powered, natural-language, and conversational analytics. This leader will help build the semantic models, data products, and analytics foundation required to support those experiences.
RESPONSIBILITIES
– Lead, develop, and scale a 10+ person analytics team
– Own analytics strategy, roadmap, and delivery across internal and customer-facing use cases
– Partner with Product, Engineering, Finance, Sales, GTM, and Operations leaders
– Lead customer-facing reporting and embedded analytics products
– Define standards for data modeling, semantic layers, SQL, testing, documentation, and governance
– Drive the roadmap for self-service, conversational, and AI-enabled analytics
– Participate in technical discovery, architecture reviews, and key technical decisions
– Remain hands-on enough to work in Snowflake, understand Looker models, and guide technical direction
REQUIREMENTS
– 10+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, analytics engineering, BI, or a related field
– 5+ years of leadership experience, including management of teams with 10+ people
– Strong engineering or analytics-engineering foundation. Pure BI backgrounds are unlikely to be a fit
– Extensive Looker and LookML experience
– Strong Snowflake and advanced SQL skills
– Expertise in data modeling, semantic layers, governed metrics, and modern analytics engineering
– Hands-on dbt experience
– Experience delivering customer-facing or embedded analytics products
– Strong understanding of the SDLC and working with Product and Engineering teams
NICE TO HAVES
– Experience with AI-powered analytics, natural-language query, conversational analytics, or LLM-driven workflows
– Experience with Power BI, Tableau, Fivetran, Airflow, Informatica, React, or Vue.js
– Travel technology, corporate travel, expense management, spend analytics, sustainability, or compliance-reporting experience
COMPENSATION
Base salary up to $235,000.
15% annual bonus.

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Senior DevOps Engineer (GCP)
$65 - $90
+ Data Engineering
ContractNew York
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Senior DevOps Engineer (GCP)
About Harnham
Harnham is the global leader in Data & Analytics recruitment. We partner with organisations across cloud, AI, data engineering, and technology to connect top contract talent with transformational projects.
About the Client
Our client is a specialist consulting organisation delivering a high-profile cloud and AI transformation programme for a major enterprise organisation. The project focuses on building secure, scalable infrastructure that enables next-generation data products and services.
Role Details
- Role: Senior DevOps Engineer (GCP)
- Location: Remote (US based)
- Pay Rate: $65-$90/hr
- Contract Length: 4 Months
- Start Date: August 24th
About the Role
We are seeking a Senior DevOps Engineer to own the cloud platform foundation for a large-scale enterprise data initiative. This role will focus heavily on infrastructure automation, platform engineering, security, observability, and deployment automation.
The successful candidate will help establish a secure, highly available cloud environment while creating the tooling and processes needed to support ongoing delivery and operational excellence.
Key Responsibilities
- Build and maintain cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
- Design and support CI/CD pipelines across multiple services and applications
- Implement cloud security, IAM, networking, and secrets management controls
- Develop monitoring, alerting, and operational observability capabilities
- Partner with engineering teams to improve platform reliability and deployment processes
- Create operational runbooks and support knowledge-transfer activities
Requirements
Must Have
- Strong hands-on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) experience
- Advanced Terraform experience including state management
- Experience building modern CI/CD pipelines
- Containerisation experience using Docker and cloud-native platforms
- Strong cloud security, IAM, networking, and secrets management knowledge
- Monitoring and observability experience using cloud-native or third-party tooling
Nice to Have
- MLOps or AI platform support experience
- Experience with GitHub Actions or GitLab CI
- Exposure to Snowflake environments
- Cross-cloud experience working across GCP and AWS
- Experience supporting high-scale data processing platforms
Apply
If you enjoy building cloud platforms from the ground up and want to play a key role in a major cloud transformation programme, we’d be interested in speaking with you.
WE WILL NOT BE ENGAGING WITH THIRD PARTIES FOR THIS SEARCH

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