Senior Data Engineer (Defence)

Location: Newcastle upon Tyne Security clearance: must be eligible for UK SC-level security clearance (UK national) Visa sponsorship: we are not able to sponsor visas for this role Closing date: applications reviewed on a rolling basis About Neptune North Neptune North is a high-performing technical consultancy. We build data, AI and software solutions for clients in defence, financial services and private capital, working on demanding problems in challenging environments. We were founded in 2024 as a joint venture between Oliver Wyman and Rokos Capital Management. We’re headquartered in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, with a growing international footprint, and we’re recruiting exceptional engineers across every level. The role We’re looking for a Senior Data Engineer to build data capabilities for defence clients and to help provide technical oversight to a new and rapidly growing team. You will help define and strengthen the data engineering capabilities that differentiate Neptune North and build a trusted reputation across defence clients. Responsibilities also include contributing to business development, providing technical expertise and mentoring, overseeing the quality of deliverables, and hands-on involvement in projects. This is a technical leadership role that requires depth beyond assembling pipelines from managed services. Potential projects span fully engineered production platforms, developing Proof of Concepts (POCs), and applied work in constrained or accredited environments. Responsibilities Influence the technical direction and play a key role in strengthening Neptune North’s data engineering capabilities Provide leadership and hands-on delivery in a wide range of data projects Work directly with clients to shape requirements, manage expectations, and to build trust Contribute to winning work by helping to write compelling bids and high-quality technical proposals Demonstrate flexibility in taking on work aligned to evolving company priorities Advocate knowledge sharing across the team and identify opportunities for reuse of capabilities Set the standard for data quality, testing and reliability, and hold the team to it Regularly provide career and technical mentorship to other engineers to build a high calibre data engineering team What makes a great candidate Minimum 5 years employment experience designing, building and overseeing data-intensive applications and pipelines Excellent programming skills in Python and SQL, and ideally other modern programming languages Experience with distributed computing frameworks such as Spark or Databricks Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure or GCP, and orchestration tools such as Airflow A track record of establishing data quality, testing and observability practices across a team A solid understanding of software engineering processes, and a drive to embed best practices in teams Excellent verbal and written…