Data Engineer (Tech Lead/Staff)

About the role

Data Engineer (Tech Lead/Staff) at Octopus Electric Vehicles

Our Mission

Octopus Electric Vehicles is dedicated to accelerating the transition to sustainable transport. We believe that electric vehicles are the cornerstone of a greener, fairer future for UK mobility. To achieve this, we require infrastructure and data that is as dynamic and responsive as the vehicles we support. Our mission is to build the technology and data frameworks that empower our customers to travel sustainably with confidence.

The Data Challenge

Our data platform is the central nervous system of OEV. It is purpose-built to deliver real-time insights and automate decision-making across the entire business. This system liberates our internal teams from manual reporting, allowing them to concentrate on strategic innovation. The platform ingests diverse data streams, transforms them into reliable assets, and makes them available for analytics, machine learning, and operational forecasting. Our goal is a data environment that is fast, reliable, and ready for production-scale applications.

As our data team expands rapidly, we are automating every conceivable workflow. We are moving beyond simple extraction to focus on system robustness, data latency, and reliability. This creates the foundation for advanced data science that can be trusted to guide our business. We are seeking a technical leader who shares this vision and is eager to apply their expertise to decarbonise the UK's vehicle fleet.

Your Opportunity

You will play a pivotal role in shaping the data ecosystem that powers our electric future. Your work will directly influence how our company analyses performance, measures impact, and innovates for our customers. You will tackle complex data problems that have a tangible environmental impact. This is a chance to join a passionate team committed to building technology that changes how people move.

Key Responsibilities

You will architect and manage the intake of information from our varied sources. This involves designing robust mechanisms for both streaming and batch data, while meticulously documenting evolving data structures. You will construct and maintain transformation pipelines that convert raw vehicle telemetry into structured, high-quality tables ready for analysis and modeling.

Ensuring data integrity is paramount. You will establish rigorous review checkpoints to validate data quality, enforce schema compliance, and monitor operational metrics before data is released. You will also orchestrate the movement of datasets across storage layers, guaranteeing that scheduled runs complete successfully and stakeholders are notified promptly.

Collaboration is central to this role. You will work closely with product and operations teams to align on strategic roadmaps and clarify requirements. You will help simplify future integration projects and identify opportunities to enhance our analytical capabilities. A critical part of your job will be to reduce latency in our data intake, using intelligent caching and partitioning to keep dashboards responsive.

You will implement essential safeguards that detect anomalies early, fostering trust in the data used for forecasting and strategic planning. Finally, you will act as a guide and enabler, helping partners understand our data capabilities so they can propose new experiments and validate assumptions about driver behavior and energy usage.

Essential Criteria

You must demonstrate a proven track record of operating at a Staff or Tech Lead level. Your experience should span multiple complex projects where you exercised sound judgment. You must possess hands-on technical skills with Python, SQL, and Airflow. Experience with cloud-based storage solutions for analytics, such as those provided by AWS, is essential.

A deep understanding of dimensional modeling and event-driven architectures is required. You must also be skilled in methods for validating data correctness across large, complex datasets. Legally, you must be eligible to work in the United Kingdom without the need for sponsorship.

Valued Experience

Direct experience with vehicle telematics or energy sector data is highly advantageous. This background allows you to ask more incisive questions about usage patterns and energy consumption. Familiarity with the specific challenges of the transport electrification journey will help you contribute even more quickly.

Your Toolkit

Your daily work will rely on a powerful set of technologies. You will use Python and SQL to manipulate and analyze data. Airflow and dbt will be central to your orchestration and transformation workflows. The cloud infrastructure will be built on AWS, utilizing S3 for storage and Redshift or Snowflake for analytics. You will manage your code and collaboration using Git, and communicate via Slack. Looker will be your primary tool for data visualization and dashboard creation.

Next Steps

Please confirm specific application instructions on the official portal. We look forward to reviewing your application and discussing how your skills can help power the data-driven revolution in electric vehicles.