Junior Data Engineer
WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.
We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company - powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth.
We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise.
Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow.
For more information, visit WPP.com.
About WPP Open Intelligence
WPP Open Intelligence’s Activation team builds the foundational data infrastructure and high-performance edge services that support WPP’s position in the market. Our platform is deeply integrated with leading supply-side partners in the AdTech industry.
Our edge services handle more than 60,000 classification requests per second, while our contextual classification pipelines process 10,000 requests per second. With operations spanning the US and UK and continued expansion across EMEA and APAC, our engineering team builds robust, scalable, reliable, and privacy-conscious systems at global scale.
Why We’re Hiring
We are expanding our engineering team as we develop a new generation of privacy-preserving data products, extend our infrastructure across EMEA and APAC, and deepen our integrations with leading supply-side partners.
As a Junior Data Engineer, you will contribute to this next stage of growth while learning from experienced engineers. You will help build reliable data systems that are performant, scalable, and designed with privacy and responsible data use in mind.
What You’ll Do
- Develop, test, and review data pipelines and related code using team standards, with guidance from experienced engineers.
- Work with product managers, analysts, and data scientists to implement well-defined features and improvements.
- Build and maintain data-quality checks, documentation, and basic governance practices.
- Support investigations into pipeline failures, data inconsistencies, and operational issues, contributing fixes with mentorship.
- Build familiarity with the data platform, tooling, and codebase through hands-on development, feedback, and code reviews.
- Ask questions, share learnings, and contribute ideas that improve team practices, data quality, and reliability.
Who You’ll Work With
You will work closely with data engineers, software engineers, product managers, analysts, and data scientists. You will report to a Lead Engineer and collaborate with colleagues supporting WPP Open Intelligence’s growing global infrastructure.
What You’ll Need
- Early-career experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, software development with a data focus, or a related internship, graduate role, course, personal project, bootcamp, or open-source contribution.
- Practical experience working with data in at least one programming language such as Python, Go, or Scala.
- A basic understanding of software engineering fundamentals, algorithms, data structures, and data processing.
- Familiarity with Git, testing, or basic CI/CD workflows-or the motivation to develop these skills.
- Exposure to a cloud platform such as GCP, AWS, or Azure, or a strong interest in learning cloud practices in a production environment.
- Clear communication skills, including the confidence to explain your work, ask questions, and seek support when needed.
- Curiosity about data quality, privacy, reliability, and continuous learning.
- You do not need to be an expert in every technology listed in this advert. We value strong fundamentals, a willingness to learn, and the ability to apply new concepts thoughtfully.
Nice to Have
- Familiarity with Spark or another distributed data-processing framework.
- Experience with SQL, batch processing, or stream processing.
- Exposure to Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, or other infrastructure and deployment tools.
- Experience contributing to a monorepo or large shared codebase.
- Familiarity with AdTech, MarTech, data privacy, or responsible handling of sensitive data.
- Side projects, coursework, bootcamp work, or open-source contributions involving data pipelines or software development.
Who you are:
You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open-minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.
You're optimistic: We believein the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.
You're extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.
What we'll give you:
Passionate, inspired people - We aim to create a culture in which people can do extraordinary work.
Scale and opportunity - We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.
Challenging and stimulating work - Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?
#LI-Hybrid
We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.
WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.