Data Engineer (we have office locations in Cambridge, Leeds and London)

Job Description

Data Engineer

Are you an experienced Data Engineer who enjoys working at scale, solving complex data challenges and building reliable data solutions? Do you want to apply your engineering skills to work that has a meaningful impact on healthcare and research?

At Genomics England, we work with some of the most complex clinical and genomic data in the world, helping researchers, clinicians and scientists use that data to advance research and improve patient outcomes.

You’ll be joining our Generate Research Data (GRD) Service at an exciting time. GRD works with internal and external partners to generate or onboard new data that enriches the National Genomic Research Library, supporting a varied portfolio across areas such as rare disease and cancer, involving genomic, multi-omic, bespoke clinical data and emerging sequencing technologies. This is an opportunity to tackle challenging engineering problems, optimise data pipelines and build scalable, high-quality data services, helping lay the foundations for scientific discovery and new clinical and research capabilities.

We’re looking for an established, hands-on Data Engineer to bring strong technical expertise to this work, improving how large volumes of sensitive healthcare and genomic data are acquired, transformed, stored and delivered securely and efficiently.

If you enjoy building robust data solutions, working with complex data at scale and applying your skills to something that genuinely matters, this could be a great opportunity to make a real difference.

What you’ll be doing

• Designing, building and optimising scalable data pipelines and processing systems, from data acquisition and transformation through to delivery.

• Working with large volumes of clinical and genomic data, supporting data lineage, metadata capture, de-identification and integration with reference data.

• Building and improving data solutions in AWS, applying cloud-first engineering practices and making effective use of storage, compute and orchestration technologies.

• Working with tools such as Python, RDBMS, Prefect, Tableau, Semarchy, Aspera and Globus across data orchestration, visualisation, data management and secure data transfer.

• Developing and optimising data models, storage solutions and data products for performance, scalability, security, cost and reliable data delivery.

• Improving data quality, testing, automation and observability, helping ensure pipelines and services are reliable, maintainable and fit for purpose.

• Working closely with engineering, QA, architecture, product and other specialist teams to deliver well-integrated data services.

• Supporting machine learning and data visualisation capabilities by enabling trusted, well-structured data.

• Sharing knowledge, promoting good engineering practices and helping strengthen data engineering capability across the chapter and wider organisation.

What you’ll bring

• Proven hands-on experience designing, building and optimising data pipelines and large-scale processing systems, including ETL and ELT.

• Strong practical experience with AWS and cloud-based data engineering, including relevant storage, compute and orchestration technologies.

• Strong coding skills using Python, alongside experience with testing, CI/CD and infrastructure as code.

• Experience developing data models and delivering reliable data products, with a good understanding of data engineering patterns and practices.

• A sound understanding of data quality, data lineage, metadata management and data governance.

• Experience working with sensitive data in regulated environments, with a good understanding of security, performance, scalability and compliance considerations.

• Experience working with genomic, bioinformatics, clinical or other complex healthcare datasets.

• Familiarity with data orchestration, visualisation, data management and secure data transfer tools.

• The ability to work collaboratively across technical and non-technical teams, communicate complex concepts clearly and contribute to effective engineering practices.

Bonus if you have

• Knowledge of healthcare data models, standards and terminology, such as FHIR, HL7, OMOP or SNOMED CT.

• Familiarity with NHS and wider healthcare data ecosystems, including clinical, primary care or other health datasets.

• Understanding of healthcare data linkage, pseudonymisation, information governance and data quality challenges across clinical and research environments.

• Experience working with Trusted Research Environments or other secure, privacy-preserving data platforms.

• Experience enabling the secondary use of health data for research, analytics or other scientific use cases.

• Experience supporting machine learning or data visualisation through the development of reliable data pipelines and products.

Qualifications

Ideally, you’ll have a master’s degree or equivalent practical experience in data engineering, data science, biostatistics, informatics or a related field.

Additional Information

Closing date for applications : Sunday 15th November at 23:00 (UK time)

Salary from : £75,500

Please note : We are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:

• Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday, plus bank holidays, plus additional leave for long service, and also the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), an Electric Vehicle salary sacrifice scheme and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
• Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
• Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.

Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace

Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background.

Genomics England’s policies of non-discrimination and equity and will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor.

Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties. Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity.

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