Senior Data Engineer

Job Introduction

Job Title: Senior Data Engineer

Location: Fully flexible - remote, hybrid or office-based
Annual Salary: £60,000 - £80,000
Contract: Permanent

Twinkl is on an exciting journey to redefine how we serve our global teaching community through data. We're building a world-class data engineering function to power the next generation of our data platform, with modern tools and practices at our core.

As a Senior Data Engineer, you'll build and maintain the robust data systems that power our analytics and operational needs. You'll work across our entire data platform, from batch processing to real-time event streams, ensuring our solutions are scalable, maintainable, and deliver real value to our users.

Data Engineering Team

You'll have the opportunity to work with modern data engineering tools and practices, while learning from experienced engineers. We offer the freedom to work in whatever way suits you best - whether that's remote, in our Sheffield office, or a mix of both. You're encouraged to contribute to architectural decisions, take ownership of key platform components, and develop your skills across the full data engineering spectrum. With our focus on impact over hours worked, you'll be part of a team that values pragmatic solutions and continuous learning, working on projects that make a real difference to educators worldwide.

• We embrace modern data engineering practices and tools

• We champion learning and development

• We believe in empowering engineers to drive technical decisions

• We focus on impact and outcomes over process

What will you be doing? 

As our Senior Data Engineer, you will:

• Build and maintain scalable data pipelines

• Implement event streaming solutions

• Design and optimize data models

• Contribute to architectural decisions

• Ensure data quality and reliability

• Work closely with data scientists and analysts

• Help establish engineering best practices

• Help build and maintain our data catalog and documentation

• Implement robust testing practices that give us confidence in our data

• Contribute to data quality frameworks and standards

• Turn complex data problems into maintainable solutions

What do we need from you?

• Strong experience with modern data engineering tools and practices

• Understanding of event-driven architectures

• Experience with cloud platforms and services

• Knowledge of data modeling and warehouse design

• Strong SQL and Python skills

• Experience with version control and CI/CD

• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code concepts

• Understanding of data quality and testing approaches

• Experience implementing data quality checks that matter

• Understanding of data lineage and metadata management

• Knowledge of testing practices for data pipelines

Most importantly, you should:

• Be curious about how things work and always looking to learn more

• Care about building reliable systems that make other people's jobs easier

• Understand that sometimes "boring" technology is the right choice

• Get satisfaction from cleaning up messy data problems

• Want to work somewhere where you can have real impact, not just maintain the status quo

What’s in it for you?

• A friendly, welcoming and supportive culture. We believe work should be fun and always put people before process

• Flexible working with fully remote and hybrid working options  - early bird or night owl? No problem - our flexible working policy helps you work the hours that suits you best

• 33 days annual leave per year, pro rata. You decide which public holidays to recognise. After 2 years of employment, your annual leave entitlement will accrue year on year up to 38 days annual leave

• An additional day of annual leave, a Me Day, to take time for yourself

• Charity day to volunteer and support a registered charity of your choice 

• Westfield Health (including Health Club discount and Westfield Rewards discount and cashback)

• Learning and Development opportunities, with opportunities for internal mobility across various departments / areas of the business

• 4 x annual salary death in service life assurance 

• Enhanced pension after long service

• Enhanced parental and adoption leave after long service

• Quarterly awards designed to reward and recognise our wonderful Twinkl employees

• Seasonal events for all UK employees so you can catch up with your new colleagues in person 

• Twinkl Subscription

How do we make it happen?

We like to keep things simple and clear, after an initial chat with our TA Partner the process is:

1. Initial 30 minute chat with the Head of Data Engineering so you can get to know more about the role.

2. Take-home technical test, which will involve some coding 

3. 60 minute technical interview - we’ll go over your tech test and talk about it in more detail. Then we’ll do a few competency based questions. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions about the role and Twinkl and get to know why the data team is a really exciting place to work. 

4. 60 minute behaviours interview - where we'll do some competency based questions and you’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions about the role and Twinkl and get to know why the data team is a really exciting place to work.  

5. That’s it, we’ll review everything and let you know, either way you’ll be given feedback about your interview because we believe constructive feedback is always important. 

At Twinkl, we encourage diversity, and our doors are open to everyone. We're committed to creating an inclusive workplace for all. If you need any adjustments during the application process to showcase your abilities, please let us know. We're here to support you on your journey.