Principal Data Engineer

Principal Data Engineer (AWS) - Contract, Outside IR35

£650 per day | Outside IR35 | 3-Month Contract (13 weeks) | Remote UK - very occasional travel to Leeds

Brio Digital is working with a major UK organisation embarking on a strategic data transformation programme to modernise a business-critical operational platform.

The project replaces manual, spreadsheet-driven processes with a scalable, cloud-native AWS solution that automates high-volume invoicing and operational workflows used across the business. This is a greenfield MVP with a clear roadmap to expand into a significantly larger programme.

What you'll be doing

• Owning the Low Level Design, data models, data flows, AWS services, security controls, IAM model, encryption and secrets management, observability, DR, integration patterns and CI/CD approach

• Leading technical delivery of the MVP and setting the engineering standards the build follows

• Building scalable serverless data pipelines, APIs and event-driven integrations

• Implementing Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or CloudFormation), CI/CD pipelines and CloudWatch monitoring, logging and alerting

• Applying AWS Well-Architected principles, cost optimisation and FinOps thinking into the design

• Defining and driving the end-to-end test strategy, unit, integration, system, non-functional and deployment validation

• Delivering reporting datasets, data quality controls, reconciliation testing and documented data lineage

• Working with Solution Architecture, Data Architecture, Cyber Security and Platform Engineering through formal design review and governance

• Producing runbooks, knowledge transfer and handover to production support ahead of service transition

Liaising with other teams is a core part of this role, so strong communication and stakeholder skills are essential.

What you'll need

• Proven enterprise AWS data platform experience at Principal / Lead level

• Strong Python

• Serverless AWS and event-driven architecture design

• Terraform or CloudFormation (IaC as standard)

• CI/CD, automated testing, static code analysis and enterprise security practice

• Experience producing and defending LLDs in a governed enterprise environment

• Confidence operating independently in a greenfield MVP with senior stakeholders

AWS toolset: Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, S3, EventBridge, SNS, SQS, API Gateway, IAM, Glue, Redshift, Lake Formation, CloudWatch

Contract details

• Rate: £650 per day

• IR35: Outside IR35 (determination held by the end client)

• Duration: Initial 3 months, with strong likelihood of extension into the wider programme

• Location: Remote UK, with very occasional travel to Leeds

Apply with an up-to-date CV, or contact Brio Digital directly for a confidential discussion. Interviews are moving quickly.