Principal Data Engineer
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 17, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 30, 2026.
Internal use only - Grade E
About us
We’re the team behind digital retailer Very.
Our purpose, helping families get more out of life, powers everything we do.
And we want our people to get more out of life too! If you’re high-performing, ambitious and make the most of every opportunity, we want to hear from you. In return, you’ll enjoy heaps of flexibility, great perks and benefits, and the freedom to be yourself, keep learning and take your career wherever you want it to go.
If you love making a difference, you’ll love making it sparkle for millions of Very customers.
About the Role
You'll be one of the technical experts within the Data Enablement team, a hands-on Principal Data Engineer at the heart of our data transformation.
You'll work across multiple initiatives, partnering with Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and other senior engineers to solve complex technical problems, improve our engineering practices, and guide the evolution of our platform.
You'll remain hands-on, leading by example through architecture, design, coding, mentoring, and technical decision-making. You'll have the opportunity to influence technology choices, define engineering standards, and build solutions that will shape the future of data at Very.
You'll help drive the future of data engineering at Very by:
- Providing technical leadership across multiple teams and initiatives.
- Designing scalable, resilient, and secure data architectures.
- Building and evolving cloud-native data platforms and services.
- Leading the design and implementation of complex data engineering solutions.
- Driving improvements in performance, scalability, reliability, and cost optimisation.
- Setting engineering standards through code reviews, reusable patterns, and best practices.
- Supporting engineers through coaching, mentoring, and technical leadership.
- Collaborating with Product, Platform, and Architecture teams to align technical direction with business priorities.
- Leading investigations into complex production issues and driving long-term improvements.
- Identifying technical risks and opportunities, helping to shape the future roadmap of the platform.
About you
You'll be an experienced engineer who enjoys solving difficult problems and helping others succeed.
You'll likely bring:
- Experience building and supporting production data solutions.
- Strong knowledge of AWS cloud services, including technologies such as Amazon S3, EKS, Lambda, SNS, EventBridge, and IAM.
- Strong coding skills in Python and SQL, with exposure to Java or Scala being beneficial.
- Experience with technologies such as Iceberg, Starburst, Teradata, HVR, or similar enterprise data platforms would be beneficial.
- Experience working with data lakes, data warehouses, Lakehouse technologies, or enterprise data platforms.
- A solid understanding of modern data engineering concepts such as data ingestion, change data capture (CDC), data modelling, and analytics.
- Experience working with version control, CI/CD, and modern engineering practices.
- A collaborative mindset and a willingness to learn from others.
- A desire to continually improve both your own skills and the platform around you.
Some of our benefits
- Flexible, hybrid working model
- Inclusive culture and environment, check out our Glassdoor reviews
- £1000 flexible benefits allowance to suit your needs
- 30 days holiday + bank holidays
- LinkedIn Learning access
- Bonus potential (performance and business-related)
- Up to 25% discount on Very.co.uk
- Matched pension up to 6%
- More benefits can be found on our career site
How to apply
Please note that the talent acquisition team are managing this vacancy directly, and if successful in securing this role, you will be required to undertake a credit, CIFAS, Right to Work checks and if a specific requirement of your role a DBS (criminal records) check. Should your application progress we require you to let the team know if there is anything you need to disclose in relation to any of these checks prior to them being undertaken, including any unspent criminal convictions.
What happens next?
Our talent acquisition team will be in touch if you’re successful so keep an eye on your emails! We’ll arrange a short call to learn more about you, as well as answer any questions you have. If it feels like we’re a good match, we’ll share your CV with the hiring manager to review. Our interview process is tailored to each role and can be in-person or held remotely.
You can expect a two stage interview process for this position:
1st Stage - 30 Minutes Teams call - likely with our Data Engineering Manager, we will then share a Take Home Task.
2nd Stage - A one hour technical interview to discuss your take home test in more detail.
As an inclusive employer please do let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments.
If you'd like to know more about our interviews, you can find out here.
Diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities
We’re building a culture of everyday inclusion, and welcome applications from anyone who believes they can do the job. We don’t discriminate based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.
We want our recruitment process to be accessible to everyone. If you need reasonable adjustments to apply, interview, or perform a role, let us know via [email protected]. We’ll be happy to support you.
We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer and have nine brilliant colleague networks - including DAWN (Disability Awareness at Very) and Think (Neurodiversity at Very) - that are helping us make Very an even more inclusive place to work.