{"id":3431816,"url":"https://alion.io/job/optima-partners-data-engineer-early-career","title":"Data Engineer (early career)","company":{"id":678916,"name":"Optima Partners","domain":"optimapartners.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/optimapartners","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Teamtailor","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":90,"open_postings":5,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.2,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":84,"computed_at":"2026-11-02T06:13:15Z"}},"role":"Data Science","role_family":"Data Science","seniority":"junior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Edinburgh, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":43000,"max_usd":84000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":17},"experience_years_min":2,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"Delta Lake","optional":false},{"name":"ETL/ELT","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Looker","optional":false},{"name":"Power BI","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Spark","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Agile","optional":true},{"name":"Airflow","optional":true},{"name":"Apache NiFi","optional":true},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":true},{"name":"Git","optional":true},{"name":"Scrum","optional":true},{"name":"Talend","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-28T14:59:22Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-28","last_verified_at":"2026-11-02T05:30:10Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":4,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":4},"description":"Who we are\nOptima Partners is a VC-backed, scaling AI and data consultancy headquartered in Edinburgh. We bring together expertise in strategy, design, data science and engineering to help leading brands solve real business challenges.\nWe turn data into better customer experiences, smarter decisions and lasting business value.\nOur clients include Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group, Bank of Ireland, Nationwide, Aviva, Eon Next, OVO and GSK. We work alongside their teams to deliver practical solutions and share the skills to build on them.\nWithin our Advanced Data practice, you’ll work in mixed-capability pods alongside data engineers, analysts, data scientists and ML/AI engineers, learning across disciplines and turning data into practical solutions, clear insights and better customer experiences.\nThe opportunity\nAs a Data Engineer reporting to a Technical Lead Leader, you will help design, build test and maintain reliable data pipelines and solutions for clients across diverse sectors, working in multi-disciplinary teams with experienced engineers. This early-career role suits someone with up to two years commercial experience or equivalent project experience who wants to develop their technical and consulting skills.\nYou will learn alongside engineers, data scientists, architects and product specialists, with mentoring, knowledge sharing and support to develop your skills in modern data platforms and progress your career.\nWhat you will be doing\nHelp build, test and maintain data pipelines using tools such as Databricks.\n\nSupport data warehouse and data lake development with guidance from experienced engineers.\n\nDevelop ETL/ELT workflows that make reliable, high-quality data accessible.\n\nCollaborate with colleagues and clients to understand requirements and deliver practical data solutions.\n\nAnalyse data and create dashboards and visualisations using tools such as Power BI, Looker and QlikView.\n\nTurn analysis into clear insights and compelling data stories that help clients make informed decisions.\n\nHelp improve system performance, reliability and cost efficiency through troubleshooting and automation, and keep documentation clear.\n\nWhat skills we would like you to have\nWorking knowledge of Python, SQL or similar data processing languages.\n\nSome exposure to Spark or Databricks through work, study, training or projects.\n\nAwareness of Delta Lake, notebooks and workflows; production experience is not essential.\n\nFamiliarity with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure or GCP is desirable.\n\nBasic understanding of relational databases and SQL queries.\n\nAwareness of tools such as Airflow, Apache NiFi or Talend is helpful.\n\nFoundations in data warehousing, modelling and schema design, with an interest in building dashboards using Power BI, QlikView and Looker to analyse and visualise data and communicate insights to clients.\n\nFamiliarity with Git and an interest in automated testing, CI/CD and collaborative development.\n\nUp to one year’s relevant commercial experience, or experience through internships, placements, graduate schemes, bootcamps or strong projects.\n\nTeam, client-facing or collaborative project experience is desirable.\n\nAwareness of Agile or Scrum is beneficial\n\nWhat you will bring\nStrong problem-solving and analytical thinking abilities.\n\nAn inquisitive mindset, with curiosity about data engineering and a willingness to learn.\n\nGood communication skills, with the ability to ask clear questions, share progress and explain technical ideas in an accessible way.\n\nA team-oriented mindset with adaptability and a willingness to learn from feedback.\n\nAs technology partners with leading companies such as AWS and Databricks, we’ll invest in your training and development, alongside hands-on project experience with some of the UK’s leading organisations.\nWhat we offer\nCompetitive base salary.\n\nInclusion in our annual discretionary bonus plan with an on-target performance bonus of up to 15%.\n\nUp to 37 days holiday inclusive of personal and public allocations. Seven are fixed days for Christmas and New Year, and 30 are floating days taken at your discretion, subject to client scheduling and line manager approval.\n\nPrivate medical insurance, single cover.\n\nGroup life and income protection insurance.\n\nSalary sacrifice pension scheme after three months’ employment.\n\nAccess to over 1,000 perks and discounts via an employee discount portal.\n\nDedicated development time plus tools and funding to support personal and professional development.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4507,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":2,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Health insurance","Professional development"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["AI Consulting & Integration"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-29T00:55:30Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-31T06:23:40+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":4,"expected_fill_days":84,"reasons":["conf:0","win:early","comp:junior"],"computed_at":"2026-11-02T06:13:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/optima-partners-data-engineer-early-career","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/optima-partners-data-engineer-early-career.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-02T06:40:01Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":9624,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-03T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":678916},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=678916"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Foptima-partners-data-engineer-early-career"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Foptima-partners-data-engineer-early-career"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Foptima-partners-data-engineer-early-career"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/optima-partners-data-engineer-early-career\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Foptima-partners-data-engineer-early-career"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3431816}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"optimapartners.co.uk","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3431816},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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