Lead Data Engineer

Lead Data Engineer (Permanent, London on-site) A high-growth AI software company is looking for a Lead Data Engineer to own and scale the data foundations behind an AI-driven operations platform used by property teams. This is a hands-on, high-ownership role where you'll define the data architecture, set engineering standards and build systems that power product analytics and modern AI capabilities. What you'll do • Architect and build scalable data pipelines and distributed data systems • Design ingestion, transformation and storage patterns for operational and AI workloads • Deliver batch and real-time/streaming pipelines • Build and optimise vector search and retrieval pipelines that support AI features • Implement monitoring, observability and data quality frameworks • Drive security, reliability and governance across the data layer • Partner closely with backend and AI engineers to support training, inference and product delivery • Influence technical direction and help shape the future data team as the company scales What we're looking for • Demonstrable experience in data engineering or backend engineering with proven architecture ownership • Good level of Python engineering skills • Strong relational database experience (PostgreSQL preferred) including performance and query optimisation • Exposure to NoSQL systems • Comfortable building from scratch in a fast-moving, product-led environment • Experience with vector databases and vector search in modern AI systems • Desirable: Spark, Airflow, Kafka, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, event-driven architectures • Cloud experience (AWS, GCP or Azure) is a plus Why join • High impact and ownership as an early senior hire • Work with a strong engineering team on real AI product challenges • Competitive salary If you are an experienced Data Engineer seeking a challenging opportunity to lead and innovate within a transformative AI company, we encourage you to apply now and become a vital part of our client's mission. Unfortunately sponsorship is not available for this role.