Senior Data Engineer (6 Month Contract)
Prolific
Prolific is not just another player in the AI space – we are the architects of the human data infrastructure that's reshaping the landscape of AI development. In a world where foundational AI technologies are increasingly commoditized, it's the quality and diversity of human-generated data that truly differentiates products and models.
The role
We're looking for a Senior Data Engineer to help build scalable data solutions that serve teams across the business – from data scientists and analysts to AI engineers and product teams. You'll contribute to both the underlying platform and the way data is used in our products, working in a modern, cloud native environment where privacy, security, and good data practices are part of how we build.
What you’ll bring to the role
- Technical Expertise: 3+ years building and shipping production grade data systems, with strong SQL skills and proficiency in Python or another object-oriented language (Java, Scala etc.)
- Familiarity with cloud-native infrastructure - ideally some exposure to Terraform, Kubernetes, or similar IaC and container orchestration tools. We don't expect deep expertise in all of these, but comfort working in this kind of environment matters.
- Experience designing data APIs or services that expose data to applications, or a strong interest in working across the analytical/operational boundary.
- A thoughtful approach to data quality, privacy, and security - you understand that how data is used is as important as how it's moved.
- Strong collaboration skills and comfort working across teams with different priorities — engineers, data scientists, AI engineers, product.
- A pragmatic, curious mindset - you enjoy keeping up with the field and know when to reach for a new tool versus when to stick with what works.
- Pipeline Management: Hands on experience with data pipeline tools (Airflow, dbt) and strong ability to optimise for performance and reliability.
- Quality Focus: Commitment to continuously improving product quality, security, and performance through rigorous testing and code reviews.
- Documentation: Meticulous approach to creating and maintaining architecture and systems documentation.
- Collaborative Mindset: Ability to work across teams to understand and address diverse data needs while maintaining data integrity.
- Growth Orientation: Desire to continually keep up with advancements in data engineering practices and technologies.
- Problem-Solving: Exceptional analytical skills to troubleshoot complex data issues and implement effective solutions.
- Independence: Capability to ship medium features independently while contributing to the team's overall objectives.
What you’ll be doing in the role
- Build and maintain data pipelines that power analytics, ML workloads, and product-facing applications - from internal databases, SaaS sources, and streaming systems through to the teams and services that consume them.
- Evolve our data platform alongside cloud platform engineers, using infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) and Ku