Lead Data Engineer

An exciting time to join an award-winning business in a phase of growth, in a newly created role to lead a team and be hands on in replacing old tech systems and create ETL pipelines. We're a small high-impact team but Jollyes is growing! Still small enough that you can launch a new product within days, but big enough to see the effect on hundreds of thousands of transactions - it's a great time to embark on your tech career with Jollyes!

• 
  
• Competitive salary of £60-80k p.a. (depending on level of experience - this is a new role to the business so let us know what you can bring in terms of experience and team leadership)
  
• iTrent financial wellbeing package, powered by Stream, enabling access to earnings before pay day plus lots more discounts and savings benefits.
  
• Retail Trust membership - counselling, wellbeing and financial support for the retail industry
  
• Colleague 'Treats' - numerous discounts on up to 800 high street retailers and online service providers
  
• Colleague 'We Care' wellbeing & medical support services - online GP, mental health support, get fit programme and much more
  
• 30% off Jollyes branded products (and 20% off other brands in store for your pet's needs!) with discounts for our groomers and pet clinics too.
  
• Workplace pension scheme provided by Legal & General (contributions EE 3%, ER 5%)
  
• Additional paid leave for your wedding, new pet coming home and your birthday off!
  
• Enhanced Maternity & Paternity leave and family friendly policies
  
• Buy/Sell holiday scheme - can purchase or sell up to 5 days
  
• Discounted membership for David Lloyd Clubs
  

Further benefits on completion of probationary period (including enhanced pension scheme and PMI)

This is a full time, hybrid role involving a minimum of 3 x office days per week at our pet-friendly support office in Waltham Abbey (Essex) and up to 2 x days per week from home (or other Jollyes location as preferred). 37.5 hours per week.

This role sits within our IT team. Success measures will include project delivery and impact, data quality and management, innovation and technology, stakeholder engagement, financial impact and team management.

A full job description is available on request, but to summarise your key responsibilities:

• 
  
• Backend Development: Design, build, and maintain serverless and traditional backend architectures using best practices. (We build on AWS using Lambdas and ECS images - largely in NodeJS.)
  
• ETL Pipeline Management: Develop and optimise data pipelines to enable seamless data flow and transformation. (We currently use a mix of SSIS, ETL Works, Airflow, Snowflake and are moving to Airflow/Snowflake only architecture.)
  
• Snowflake Management: Create production‑ready procedures in Snowflake for moving and analysing data.
  
• System Optimisation: Improve existing backend systems for enhanced performance, scalability, and reliability. (We're migrating away from an old ERP monolith to a SAAS architecture. On top of this, there's always new systems arriving for different teams across the business!)
  
• Cross‑functional Collaboration: Work with teams across finance, marketing, and supply chain to support data needs and align technical solutions with business objectives.
  
• Technical Leadership: Provide guidance on architecture decisions, ensuring that solutions are aligned with long‑term technical goals and day to day team leadership.
  
• Data Governance & Security: Ensure compliance with GDPR, data retention policies, and Jollyes' information security standards
  
• Documentation & Standards: Establish best practices for coding, version control, and deployment across the data stack. (Currently, we use Bitbucket, but have poor documentation.)
  

We're looking for someone who's curious, analytical, and ready to own the data infrastructure of Jollyes - someone who loves problem‑solving and wants to grow in a fast‑paced retail environment.

• 
  
• Share our values of being: Wise, Focused, Genuine, Eager, Together
  
• Proficient in SQL and Python with Experience with ETL workflows
  
• Experience with cloud-based data environments (AWS: S3, Lambda, ECS)
  
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent qualification or equivalent experience in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field.
  
• Effective communication (written and oral), with attention to detail and technically opinionated
  
• Curious and action‑orientated: driven to make data useful
  
• Comfortable making decisions and implementing new solutions
  
• Can handle sensitive and confidential information
  
• Experience working with non-data stakeholders to translate their needs and generate useful results presented in an understandable way
  
• Familiarity with orchestration tools (Airflow, DBT) and data warehouse modelling
  
• Managing other data engineers
  
• Experience with customer and commercial datasets, especially in retail or FMCG
  
• A love of pets!
  

Jollyes are an award‑winning UK pet retailer with over 100 stores and over 50 years of pet expertise between our paws. Winners of the Retail Week award for 'Best Retailer 2024' (under £250m t/o), and listed in the Sunday Times 'Best Places to Work' you really can be sure you're joining a great brand and employer, trusted by our customers and our colleagues. Accredited by 'Rest Less' as an age‑inclusive employer we welcome applications of all ages (16+), and with our accreditation to the Pet Sustainability Coalition, we're friendly to pets people and the planet too!

If you're looking for a career with a company who will truly value you and recognize your contribution with some fantastic rewards and benefits, where you can really make a difference, click to apply today!