Senior Data Engineer
Howden · London, United Kingdom · hybrid
Who are we?
Howden is a global insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mindset, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 24,000 employees spanning over 56 countries.
People join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It’s what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down headhunters for years. Whatever your priorities – work / life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering – you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.
Senior Data Engineer
Position
Senior Data Engineer to own and drive forward high-impact data initiatives, providing technical depth across the data engineering function while supporting the development of junior team members.
Summary of the Role
Howden Group Services is expanding its internal data engineering capability and is looking for an experienced Senior Data Engineer with strong expertise in Databricks and Azure data services. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of designing and delivering scalable, metadata-driven data solutions, particularly in metadata ingestion and orchestration processes, and will be capable of working with a high degree of autonomy.
The role requires someone who can take ownership of complex technical problems, contribute to design decisions, and provide informal guidance and support to junior engineers. The successful candidate will be comfortable working closely with stakeholders, balancing multiple deliverables, and implementing robust data solutions to enable business insights and operational efficiencies.
Responsibilities
The successful candidate will:
- Take ownership of the development of metadata ingestion frameworks and orchestration processes.
- Design and implement scalable and reusable metadata-driven services to optimise data pipelines.
- Build and maintain robust data solutions using Databricks and Azure services (such as Autoloader, Spark Declarative Pipelines, Azure Data Factory (ADF), Azure Functions, and Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS)).
- Apply and help embed best practices for data engineering, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps for data.
- Collaborate with business stakeholders, data scientists, and analysts to understand data needs and translate them into efficient engineering solutions.
- Optimise and enhance existing data pipelines for performance, reliability, and scalability.
- Support the adoption of data governance and security best practices across the team.
- Design, build and maintain ETL processes and analytical data products with minimal oversight.
- Provide technical guidance and informal mentoring to junior engineers, reviewing code and sharing best practices.
- Act as a point of escalation for complex, business-critical data issues, demonstrating strong problem solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
Requirements
Candidates should have:
- 4-6 years of experience in data engineering with a strong focus on Databricks (SQL & PySpark).
- Strong hands-on experience with Azure data services, including ADF, ADLS, and Azure Functions.
- Proven experience designing and implementing metadata-driven data pipelines.
- Strong understanding of orchestration and data workflow automation, e.g. Airflow, DBT, Spark Declarative Pipelines.
- Strong understanding and practical application of CI/CD practices for data engineering.
- Experience contributing to technical design discussions and architectural decisions.
- Good understanding of data governance, security, and compliance best practices.
- Experience working with insurance data (not essential, but preferred).
This role is an excellent opportunity for a capable Data Engineer who wants to step up into a more senior, autonomous position, deepen their technical expertise, begin developing others, and drive high-impact data initiatives in a modern Azure-based data ecosystem.
What do we offer in return?
A career that you define. At Howden, we value diversity – there is no one Howden type. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us:
- Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new
- We support each other in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges
- We are determined to make a positive difference at work and beyond
Reasonable adjustments
We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*.
If you're excited by this role but have some doubts about whether it’s the right fit for you, send us your application – if your profile fits the role’s criteria, we will be in touch to assist in helping to get you set up with any reasonable adjustments you may require.
*Not all positions can accommodate changes to working hours or locations. Reach out to your Recruitment Partner if you want to know more.
Permanent