Principal Data Engineer

Working at CreateFuture CreateFuture is an AI-native consulting partner where people do work that matters and are supported to do it well. We work alongside organisations such as PayPal, adidas, NatWest, FanDuel and Money Saving Expert, building digital products and services that make a difference while always putting people first. We’re a team of creators. We write code, shape delivery, build go-to-market strategies, develop AI solutions and create the practices that support our people. We work side by side with our clients, challenging what’s not working and helping them to build the future. Our commitment to craft, quality, and culture has helped us scale to over 600 people in just a few years. CreateFuture is a Great Place to Work-Certified™ company and has won Best Workplaces UK multiple years in a row. Join us on our journey. Let’s create tomorrow, together, today. About the role and team: We're looking for a Principal Data Engineer to join our Data Practice and lead the technical direction of our engineering capability. You'll work across a portfolio of clients spanning multiple industries, helping some of the most ambitious organisations in the UK solve their hardest data problems.A Principal at CreateFuture operates above the delivery line as well as within it. You'll define how we solve the hardest data engineering problems across our client base, influence the shape of engagements from pre-sales through to delivery, grow the data talent around you, and be a recognisable voice for CreateFuture in the data engineering community. What you'll be doing: Technical leadership • Defining and owning the data engineering architecture patterns CreateFuture uses across client engagements — migration frameworks, streaming architectures, data integrity standards, and Lakehouse design • Acting as the most senior technical authority on client engagements — making critical architecture decisions, resolving design disputes, and setting the bar for quality • Reviewing and signing off technical designs produced by Lead and Senior engineers across active engagements • Identifying and driving the adoption of new tooling, patterns, and cloud services that improve delivery outcomes across the data practice Delivery • Leading the technical design and execution of large-scale data migrations — moving high-volume transactional and event data from on-premises or legacy cloud estates to modern cloud platforms, without loss of fidelity or operational continuity • Architecting real-time and near-real-time data pipelines for clients with demanding latency and correctness requirements • Designing and enforcing data integrity frameworks across critical data domains — including reconciliation between source and target systems, anomaly detection, and audit trail requirements • Overseeing the implementation of regulatory and compliance reporting pipelines where relevant to a client's sector • Working with cloud data services (e.g. S3, Glue, Lambda, Athena, Redshift, RDS, Kinesis, MSK, Lake Formation, Step Functions, MWAA, or their equivalents on other platforms) — selecting the right tool for each problem rather than defaulting to a stack Practice and people • Mentoring and growing Lead and Senior Data Engineers — through code review, pairing, architecture sessions, and career conversations • Building CreateFuture's data engineering playbook: reusable patterns, accelerators, and reference architectures that reduce time-to-value on new engagements • Contributing to hiring — defining what great looks like for data engineering roles and playing an active part in assessment • Representing CreateFuture externally — at industry events, in technical blog posts, and in client-facing settings — as a credible voice on data engineering • Worki