Staff Data Engineer

October 25, 2026

Hybrid

Senior

London, United Kingdom

Description

A Staff Data Engineer role with hands-on technical leadership over a data platform that powers analytics, product insights, integrations and machine learning. The work spans architecture, reliability, scalability, governance and cost efficiency inside a regulated crypto environment, combining technical direction with direct implementation. The stack covers GCP, Kafka and Pub/Sub, Apache Beam, Bigtable, BigQuery, Airflow, Kubernetes, Terraform, Python and SQL. The position is based in London with a hybrid schedule that also allows working fully remotely, and the salary band is stated at $260,000–$274,000.

Responsibilities

Set and evolve the technical direction of the data platform across streaming, batch processing, warehousing, orchestration, governance and machine learning enablement
Lead design and delivery of complex cross-team initiatives from early architectural decisions through to implementation
Design and build core platform capabilities: reliable real-time pipelines, shared tooling, reusable frameworks and scalable data infrastructure for other teams
Establish and champion golden paths so teams build securely, consistently and efficiently
Improve platform reliability, scalability, performance and cost efficiency as data volumes and use cases grow
Partner with Security, Compliance, Product and Engineering teams to meet operational and regulatory requirements
Identify systemic risks, reduce unnecessary complexity and guide pragmatic incremental improvements to the platform
Strengthen engineering standards across data modelling, pipeline design, observability, testing, deployment automation and infrastructure as code
Influence technical priorities and planning together with engineering managers, product managers and senior technical leaders
Mentor senior engineers through design reviews, code reviews, documentation and hands-on collaboration

Requirements

Significant experience designing and evolving large-scale data platforms and distributed stream processing systems
Deep knowledge of real-time and event-driven architectures built on Kafka or Pub/Sub
Track record of leading complex technical initiatives that span multiple teams or domains
Experience building platform capabilities, shared services and engineering patterns adopted by other teams
Strong judgement across reliability, scalability, performance, governance, security and cost management
Ability to move between high-level architectural decisions and hands-on implementation
Experience influencing engineers and stakeholders around shared technical standards and long-term priorities
Team-first approach with a passion for mentoring experienced engineers and raising the technical bar
Strong communication skills to make complex technical decisions clear to technical and non-technical stakeholders
Experience in a regulated environment or designing systems with strong compliance and auditability requirements
Hands-on experience with GCP, Pub/Sub, Kafka, Apache Beam, Bigtable, Redis, Kubernetes, Airflow, BigQuery, Terraform, Python and SQL

Conditions

Competitive salary package within a stated band of $260,000–$274,000
Equity package for all employees plus pay-for-performance equity bonus
Moonshot award: $250,000 equity grant for 20 employees a year
Pension with employer contributions from day one
Employee referral program with 10K in USDC for referrals
Flexible Time Off and company-wide end-of-year recharge period
Birthday leave and enhanced parental leave
Hybrid working schedule: work fully remotely or from the nearest office hub
Commuter benefits, private healthcare, Wellhub wellness membership and lunch credit on office days
Home office setup allowance and remote working allowance for fully remote employees
$1,000 annual training budget and High Potential Program with mentorship
Enterprise access to the latest AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini
Regular remote company offsites and hackathons
Full-time employment