{"id":44352,"url":"https://alion.io/job/the-very-group-principal-data-engineer","title":"Principal Data Engineer","company":{"id":5371,"name":"The Very Group","domain":"very.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/the-very-group","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workable","truth_index":null},"role":"Data Science","role_family":"Data Science","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Liverpool, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":94000,"max_usd":166000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":33},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Amazon EKS","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon EventBridge","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon S3","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"AWS Lambda","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"IAM","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Scala","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Teradata","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-30T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-30","last_verified_at":"2026-10-18T06:40:59Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":18,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":18},"description":"Internal use only - Grade E\nAbout us\nWe’re the team behind digital retailer Very.\nOur purpose, helping families get more out of life, powers everything we do.\nAnd 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.\nIf you love making a difference, you’ll love making it sparkle for millions of Very customers.\nAbout the Role\nYou'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.\nYou'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.\nYou'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.\nYou'll help drive the future of data engineering at Very by:\nProviding technical leadership across multiple teams and initiatives.\nDesigning scalable, resilient, and secure data architectures.\nBuilding and evolving cloud-native data platforms and services.\nLeading the design and implementation of complex data engineering solutions.\nDriving improvements in performance, scalability, reliability, and cost optimisation.\nSetting engineering standards through code reviews, reusable patterns, and best practices.\nSupporting engineers through coaching, mentoring, and technical leadership.\nCollaborating with Product, Platform, and Architecture teams to align technical direction with business priorities.\nLeading investigations into complex production issues and driving long-term improvements.\nIdentifying technical risks and opportunities, helping to shape the future roadmap of the platform.\nAbout you\nYou'll be an experienced engineer who enjoys solving difficult problems and helping others succeed.\nYou'll likely bring:\nExperience building and supporting production data solutions.\nStrong knowledge of AWS cloud services, including technologies such as Amazon S3, EKS, Lambda, SNS, EventBridge, and IAM.\nStrong coding skills in Python and SQL, with exposure to Java or Scala being beneficial.\nExperience with technologies such as Iceberg, Starburst, Teradata, HVR, or similar enterprise data platforms would be beneficial.\nExperience working with data lakes, data warehouses, Lakehouse technologies, or enterprise data platforms.\nA solid understanding of modern data engineering concepts such as data ingestion, change data capture (CDC), data modelling, and analytics.\nExperience working with version control, CI/CD, and modern engineering practices.\nA collaborative mindset and a willingness to learn from others.\nA desire to continually improve both your own skills and the platform around you.\nSome of our benefits\nFlexible, hybrid working model \nInclusive culture and environment, check out our Glassdoor reviews \n£1000 flexible benefits allowance to suit your needs \n30 days holiday + bank holidays \nLinkedIn Learning access \nBonus potential (performance and business-related) \nUp to 25% discount on Very.co.uk \nMatched pension up to 6% \nMore benefits can be found on our career site \nHow to apply\nPlease 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.\nWhat happens next?\nOur 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.\nYou can expect a two stage interview process for this position:\n1st Stage - 30 Minutes Teams call - likely with our Data Engineering Manager, we will then share a Take Home Task.\n2nd Stage - A one hour technical interview to discuss your take home test in more detail.\nAs an inclusive employer please do let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments.\nIf you'd like to know more about our interviews, you can find out here.\nDiversity, inclusion and equal opportunities\nWe’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.\nWe 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 . We’ll be happy to support you.\nWe’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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5689,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["E-commerce Platforms"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-06T00:00:00Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":80,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.894,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":17,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/the-very-group-principal-data-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/the-very-group-principal-data-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-18T09:16:49Z","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":13817,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-19T00:00:00Z"}},"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":5371},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=5371"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fthe-very-group-principal-data-engineer"},{"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%2Fthe-very-group-principal-data-engineer"},{"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%2Fthe-very-group-principal-data-engineer"},{"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/the-very-group-principal-data-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fthe-very-group-principal-data-engineer"}]}