Data Engineer - Data & Insights

An exciting opportunity to join the UK's leading entertainment marketing and advertising agency as a Data Engineer.

AKA is a leading entertainment media agency working with top-tier studios, streaming platforms, and content creators to connect stories with audiences in emotionally resonant and culturally relevant ways. We harness data, creativity, and behavioural insights to shape the future of entertainment.

Position Overview

Salary dependent on experience

We are seeking a Data Engineer to join our Data & Insights Team, initially leading the engineering build of Atlas, AKA's composable customer data platform (CDP). Reporting to the Analytics Engineering Manager and working closely with our Data Scientist, Project Manager & Development Teams you'll own the pipelines, infrastructure and data architecture that turn raw customer signals into a real-time, production-grade platform - from event streaming and identity resolution through to activation and reporting. This is a hands-on build role for someone who wants to own the engineering of a platform from foundations through to go-live, and who is comfortable using modern AI-assisted development tools to move fast without cutting corners.

Key Responsibilities

Lead engineering delivery of Atlas: event streaming infrastructure, schema and taxonomy standards, and the Snowflake data warehouse and dbt transformation pipelines that sit at its core

Design and build production identity resolution pipelines, working closely with the Data Scientist to translate matching logic and statistical models into robust, scalable production code

Own ETL/ELT and reverse-ETL orchestration, ensuring reliable, well-governed data flow from source systems into the warehouse as sync frequency and volume increase

Build and maintain the CI/CD pipelines and engineering practices (with the freelance Lead Developer) that support Atlas's modelling, forecasting and MMM automation

Support productionisation of propensity, forecasting and MMM outputs (e.g. XGBoost, AutoGluon/Chronos, Meridian) built by the Data Scientist, ensuring they run reliably at scale

Implement data governance, monitoring, alerting and incident runbooks appropriate to a real-time platform underpinning live client reporting

Use AI-assisted development tools (e.g. Claude, Claude Code) as part of day-to-day engineering practice to accelerate build, testing and documentation

Work with Account Management and client teams to translate engineering constraints and trade-offs into clear, non-technical guidance

Contribute to phase-gated delivery milestones and support wider Data & Insights infrastructure beyond Atlas as priorities evolve

Work within the Data Engineering team's standards and practices set by the Analytics Engineering Manager, contributing to shared documentation, code quality and orchestration standards across client data pipelines beyond Atlas

Minimum Qualifications Degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline, or equivalent professional experience

3+ years' experience as a Data Engineer, with strong, demonstrable proficiency in Python for building and maintaining data pipelines

Experience with dbt or equivalent transformation frameworks, and with ETL/ELT tools such as Fivetran or Airbyte

Experience designing and operating production data pipelines, including CI/CD practices for data and ML workflows

Strong engineering fundamentals: version control, testing, monitoring and documentation

Comfortable working directly with AI coding assistants (e.g. Claude, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) as part of the standard development workflow

Nice to have

Experience building or supporting identity resolution / customer data platform (CDP) infrastructure, including deterministic or probabilistic matching pipelines

Experience with event streaming architectures (e.g. real-time ingestion, sub-second/sub-minute latency pipelines)

Exposure to productionising machine learning or forecasting models (e.g. XGBoost, AutoGluon, Meridian, Robyn) built by data scientists Experience with reverse ETL and activation into media, CRM or ESP platforms

Hands-on experience with Snowflake (warehouse design, performance and cost optimisation, security/governance)

Data visualisation experience within Tableau or similar

Experience working in or with entertainment/media companies

Proficiency in using project management tools such as Asana

Comfortable communicating technical concepts and trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders

Other Duties As Assigned

AKA is a fluid organisation and advertising is a fast moving and rapidly changing business; as such you may be required to undertake duties which are in line with the general purpose of this job description, but which are not specifically referred to. Some out of hours working (evenings and weekends) are occasionally required to ensure that time-sensitive social activity is delivered when required. This includes but is not limited to theatrical press nights, gallery openings, client and industry events etc.

Benefits

25 days holiday

‘Telus Health’ EAP scheme for you and your family. Giving you access to free independent advice on Life, Health, Family, Money and Work matters

Holiday Buy Back

Gym Discounts

Friends & Family Theatre Ticket

New Business Incentives

Recruitment Incentives

Pension Scheme

Interest Free Travel Loan

Ride to Work Scheme

Childcare Vouchers

Death in Service

Flexible/Hybrid Working

Critical Illness

Enhanced Parental Leave

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