Principal Data Engineer
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 10, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 9, 2026.
We’re on a mission to back the UK’s small businesses like no one else
Small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and we’re here to help them win. We’ve built a platform that uses clever data to get them the funding they need in minutes, not weeks.
At Funding Circle, we have the restless energy of a fintech start-up with the stability of a public company. It’s a unique mix that gives Circlers the autonomy to take ownership and the scale to make an impact that truly counts.
We’re a high-performing team that chooses to lift each other up. We challenge, we champion, and we have each other’s backs - because we know that when we stand together, we move faster and build better.
The impact is real: Last year alone, the businesses on our platform generated £7.2bn for the UK economy Come and join a mission that matters!
[Read our Impact Report] | [ See our Trustpilot]
The role
London (Hybrid) | 2 days in the office | Competitive Salary + Benefits
As Principal Data Engineer you are the primary technical authority for Funding Circle's Data Engineering and Data Platform architecture, designing innovative solutions on Snowflake and AWS. Reporting to the VP of Data and sitting on the Data Leadership Team, you lead the analysis, architecture, design and development of our Data and Analytics estate.
You own the Data Platform strategy and the multi-phased roadmap to our Future State Data Platform, and you are the key technical team member advising on the migration to the Future State Data Platform.
Own the Data Platform strategy and execute the multi-phased roadmap for migrating to the Future State Data Platform on Snowflake and AWS, advising on migration architecture, transition states, historical data migration and legacy decommissioning.
Lead the architecture, design and development of scalable cloud data warehouse, lakehouse, streaming and analytics solutions.
Define ingestion, transformation and orchestration patterns, naming and structural conventions, and the publication boundary between Product Engineering and Data Engineering.
Identify, mitigate and resolve architectural bottlenecks, control weaknesses and technical debt across the data ecosystem.
Own the Data as a Product Community of Practice and the standards that bind every Data Product: metadata and data contract specifications, output port and schema design, data product versioning, DQ requirements, SLA and SLO declarations, and semantic layer conventions
Champion data quality, lineage, observability and governance, ensuring checks, SLAs and alerting are expressed as code and monitored in production rather than asserted on a page.
As a key member of the Data Architecture Review Board, work on and carry formal decision rights over data architecture decisions, ensuring every proposal is engineering-viable, consistent with the platform direction and properly recorded.
What we’re looking for
We value deep expertise, but a growth mindset and good energy are what really make our team click. We’re a group that chooses to lift each other up and think smart every day.
A minimum of 10 years of experience in Data & Analytics, with experience in Staff, Principal (or equivalent) roles in Data Engineering, Data Architecture, or Data Platform, ideally within digital products or FinTech.
Extensive hands-on experience designing, building and operating cloud data platforms on Snowflake and AWS, and a proven track record leading complex, large-scale migrations from legacy systems.
Experience designing data products across source-aligned, aggregate and consumer-aligned patterns.
Proven ability to architect and scale modern cloud data platforms using Snowflake, Apache Iceberg, Amazon Redshift, and S3.
Hands-on expertise in developing robust data transformation pipelines and orchestrating complex workflows using dbt and Apache Airflow.
Strong track record of automating infrastructure and deployment pipelines using Infrastructure as Code tools like Terraform and GitHub Actions.
Ability to implement data governance, technical catalogues, end-to-end lineage, and data product portals to maximise data observability.
Experience leveraging AI tooling to accelerate data engineering workflows, migrations, and platform readiness for AI applications.
Experience establishing or leading a community of practice, driving standards adoption across teams.
Proven track record of cross-functional partnership with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Governance teams.
Act as a technical bridge and mentor, training "builders" across the company to move from basic AI usage to sophisticated system creation.
Able to architect custom AI solutions and smart automated systems that are safe, maintainable, and aligned with our long-term mission
Act as a technical bridge and mentor, training “builders" across the company to move from basic AI usage to sophisticated system creation
We’re building a place where everyone truly feels they belong. Even if your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every requirement, we'd still love to hear from you.
Why join us?
We back you to build an incredible career and by joining us, you'll be part of one of The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For 2026! As a flexible-first employer, we use a "best of both" approach. We’ll see you in our London office to collaborate - with barista coffee and subsidised Just Eat lunches on us!
Our Circler Proposition focuses on five areas:
Flexibility: We provide a benefit allowance you can tailor to your own life and family.
Health: This includes private medical and dental, health assessments, and access to a digital GP.
Wealth: We offer life assurance, share schemes, and financial coaching.
Development: You get a dedicated annual learning allowance to help you level up.
Lifestyle: We have electric car and cycle-to-work schemes, plus season ticket loans.
We also have award-winning parental leave policies. We're here to support you through the big life moments, from fertility treatments to new additions to the family.