Head of Data Engineering

About Zego

At Zego, we understand that traditional motor insurance holds good drivers back. It's too complicated, too expensive, and it doesn't reflect how well you actually drive. Since 2016, we have been on a mission to change that by offering the lowest priced insurance for good drivers.

From van drivers and gig workers to everyday car drivers, our customers are the driving force behind everything we do. We've sold tens of millions of policies and raised over $200 million in funding. And we’re only just getting started.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Head of Data Engineering to lead and grow our high-impact team of four Data Engineers. You\'ll play a pivotal role in shaping the future of Zego’s data infrastructure—ensuring it scales with our ambitions while remaining resilient, efficient, and safeguarding user data privacy.

This is a hands-on leadership role that combines technical depth, strategic vision, and team enablement. You’ll partner with cross-functional leaders in Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, and Product to drive our data strategy, evolve our architecture, and deliver world-class data systems.

What you will be doing

Leadership & Strategy

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high performing team of Data Engineers, fostering a culture of learning, excellence, and ownership.
• Define and execute the data engineering roadmap aligned with Zego’s business goals.
• Collaborate closely with leaders in Engineering, Analytics, Product and Insurance Pricing to ensure alignment and prioritisation.

Technical Ownership

• Own the end-to-end architecture and reliability of Zego’s data platform, from ingestion and transformation to governance and observability.
• Guide the team in evolving our ETL/ELT pipelines, data models, and real-time processing frameworks.
• Lead the development of new data architectures and the introduction of new technologies.

Innovation & Delivery

• Drive the adoption of modern data engineering practices including testing, CI/CD, and infrastructure as code.
• Identify opportunities for tooling improvements, tech upgrades, or re-architecting where needed.

About You

You’re a technical leader who loves building both systems and people. You combine deep technical knowledge with a pragmatic, product-focused mindset and a collaborative leadership style

What You Bring:

• Leadership Experience: 2+ years leading a team of Data Engineers, either as a Technical Lead or hands-on Manager.
• Technical Excellence: 5+ years as a Data Engineer with experience designing and operating scalable data platforms in fast-paced environments such as product-led companies or high-growth startups
• Stakeholder Management: Skilled in collaborating with diverse stakeholders and translating complex technical ideas into clear, business-focused discussions.

Technical Skills:

• Proven expertise in designing, building, and operating data pipelines, warehouses, and scalable data architectures.
• Deep hands-on experience with modern data stacks. Our tech includes Python, SQL, Snowflake, Apache Iceberg, AWS S3, PostgresDB, Airflow, dbt, and Apache Spark, deployed via AWS, Docker, and Terraform. Experience with similar technologies is essential.
• Coaching & Growth Mindset: Passion for developing others through mentorship, feedback, and knowledge sharing.
• Pragmatic Problem-Solving: Comfortable balancing technical excellence with business priorities and constraints

Nice to have

• Experience building Data Mesh or Data Lake architectures.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Docker, and real-time streaming (e.g. Kafka, Kinesis).
• Exposure to ML engineering pipelines or MLOps frameworks.

What’s it like to work at Zego?

Joining Zego is a career-defining move. People go further here, reaching their full potential to achieve extraordinary things.

We're spread throughout the UK and Europe, and united by our drive to get things done. We're proud of our company and our culture - a friendly and inclusive space where we can lift each other up and celebrate our wins every day.

Together, we're setting the bar higher, delivering exceptional work that makes a difference.

Our people are the most important part of our story, and everyone here plays a role. There's loads of room to learn and grow, and you'll get the freedom to steer your career wherever you want.

You'll work alongside a talented group who embrace each other's differences and aren't afraid of a challenge. We recognise our achievements, learn from our mistakes, and help each other to be the best we can be. Together, we're making insurance matter

How we work

We believe that teams work better when they have time to collaborate and space to get things done. We call it Zego Hybrid. We ask you to spend at least one day a week in our central London office. We think it\'s a good mix of collaborative face time and flexible home-working, setting us up to achieve the right balance between work and life

Our approach to AI

We believe in the power of AI to meaningfully improve how we work - helping us move faster, think differently, and focus on what matters most. At Zego, we encourage people to stay curious and intentional about how AI is leveraged in their work and teams to drive practical impact every day. This is your chance to do the most meaningful work of your career - and we\'ll provide you with the tools, support, and freedom to do it well

Benefits

We reward our people well. Join us and you\'ll get a market-competitive salary, private medical insurance, company share options, generous holiday allowance, and a whole lot of wellbeing benefits. We also offer an annual flexible hybrid working contribution, which you can use to support with your travel to the office or towards your own personal development. And that's just for starters!

There's more to Zego than just a job - Check out our blog for insights, stories, and more.

We're an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.