Senior Data Engineer

About YLD: YLD is a premier, remote-first digital consulting agency specializing in high-performance software engineering, modern product design, and advanced data architectures. Operating with a distributed network of engineering squads across London, Lisbon, and Porto, YLD partners tightly alongside market-leading enterprise brands to build long-range technical capabilities and deliver sustainable digital solutions that keep our clients moving ahead of the competition.

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly analytical, self-motivated Senior Data Engineer to join our cross-functional engineering consulting team. In this execution-driven track, you will be embedded inside a dedicated client delivery group to architect, build, and deploy scalable, resilient, and fault-tolerant production data environments. This role demands a pragmatic problem-solver who balances clean software design principles with data processing modeling, feature engineering, and a proactive curiosity toward utilizing generative AI workflows and agentic coding tools to maximize pipeline velocity.

Key Responsibilities

• Data Infrastructure Engineering: Architect, build, scale, and maintain high-throughput, resilient production data pipelines and fault-tolerant backend database structures.
• Analytical Modeling & Processing: Leverage Python and common quantitative libraries to execute clean data processing schemas, data preprocessing, and systematic feature engineering setups.
• Relational Schema Design: Author highly performant SQL query lines, maintain index structures, and tune relational database layers across complex product environments.
• Machine Learning Synchronization: Support production deployments of machine learning techniques, statistical modeling modules, and multi-tier data analysis frameworks.
• AI-Augmented Development: Proactively experiment with emerging AI-assisted development platforms, agentic coding frameworks, and automated tooling to enhance engineering quality and productivity.
• Cross-Functional Advisory: Serve as an elite technical team player, cross-collaborating fluidly across software engineering and product design teams to explain technical data concepts in clear, business-friendly language.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Demonstrated professional tracking history operating as a Senior Data Engineer, with deep experience building and deploying robust data-driven solutions in live production environments.
• Advanced, authoritative programming proficiency in Python and deep familiarity navigating its major data processing and statistical analysis libraries.
• Master-level command over relational database architecture design patterns, schema scaling, and advanced SQL optimization techniques.
• Solid conceptual understanding of end-to-end data pipelines, predictive modeling pipelines, and downstream feature engineering logic.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication mechanics, with a proven ability to interface comfortably inside collaborative, cross-functional client-facing environments.
• Location Context: 100% remote working infrastructure and flexible work-life balance setup open to qualified data professionals operating anywhere within the United Kingdom.

Preferred Strategic Indicators (Nice to Have)

• Prior experience working inside an international digital product consultancy or high-volume agile startup hub.
• A background integrating internal AI-driven automation workflows or managing datasets supporting machine learning models.

What We Offer

• An outstanding runway to build highly visible, mission-critical digital products for marquee global clients.
• Comprehensive private company healthcare coverage.
• Enhanced, fully paid parental leave programs (maternity and paternity benefits supported for up to 6 months).
• Highly competitive corporate pension framework schemes.
• 25 days of annual paid holiday allocation (excluding standard Public Holidays).
• Generous annual learning and development budget of £2,000 to fund professional training courses and technical conferences.
• £300 dedicated annual allowance for home hardware setup enhancements.
• Premium mental wellbeing and performance coaching support via Oli, including private therapy sessions.
• Discretionary performance bonuses tied to corporate results and team wins.