Lead Data Platform Engineer - DataOps

Lead Data Platform Engineer - DataOps Location: Nottingham Trent House (95002), United Kingdom, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire About the Role We are seeking a Lead Data Platform Engineer to own the resilience, scalability, and security of our core financial data ecosystem. This senior, hands-on engineering role requires a technical expert who thrives on designing, building, and running high-throughput, mission-critical batch and real-time data platforms in a regulated cloud environment. You will drive the strategic evolution of our data infrastructure, build automated, self-healing platforms that eliminate operational toil, support next-generation AI workloads, and ensure seamless flow of highly sensitive financial data. What You'll Do

• Design & Implementation: Lead the architectural design and deployment of high-performance, secure data movement solutions within a regulated, mission-critical financial environment.
• Production Support & Reliability: Act as the subject-matter expert and technical lead for resolving the most complex, high-impact incidents affecting data pipelines, managing stakeholders during critical events and performing root-cause analysis to engineer out systemic failures.
• Data Security & Governance: Ensure integrity and security of highly sensitive data throughout the lifecycle, implementing and enforcing security best practices including encryption at rest and transit, access controls, and compliance.
• Automation & Tooling: Develop and implement automation for common operational tasks, building tools and monitoring solutions that provide end-to-end visibility into the health of our data ecosystem.
• Performance Optimization: Proactively analyze and tune performance of data movement jobs, platforms, and underlying AWS infrastructure, implementing optimizations to improve efficiency and reduce operational costs.
• Collaboration & Leadership: Act as a technical leader and mentor for onsite and offshore team members, ensuring seamless collaboration, clear communication, and consistent operational standards across a distributed team while contributing to long-term technical strategy and cloud modernization efforts.
What We're Looking For
• A Platform or SRE Background: Solid experience in platform engineering, site reliability (SRE), or data operations, ideally within a large-scale or regulated environment.
• AWS Experience: Strong working knowledge of AWS and cloud-first data pipeline orchestration tools such as Airflow, Glue, or EMR.
• A Security Mindset: Understanding of compliance and security when managing sensitive data pipelines.
• Strong Automation Skills: Comfortable using Python and Shell scripting to automate systems, manage dependencies, and handle large batch environments.
• A Great Collaborator: Enjoys mentoring others, coordinates smoothly with distributed teams (onsite/offshore), and explains technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
Where and How You'll Work This is a permanent position based in our Nottingham office. We offer a hybrid working model: work from office and from home, with office presence three days a week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. What's in It for You
• Pension scheme, bonus, generous holiday entitlement, private medical insurance - plus flexible benefits such as season-ticket loans, cycle-to-work scheme, and enhanced parental leave.
• High-performer career progression, investment in training through Capital One University and external providers.
• Open-plan workspaces and facilities designed to inspire and support you.
• Nottingham head-office includes a fully-serviced gym, subsidised restaurant and dedicated development resources.
EEO Statement Capital One is committed to diversity in the workplace. If you require a reasonable adjustment, please contact . All information will be kept confidential and will only be used for the purpose of applying a reasonable adjustment.


• A Platform or SRE Background: Solid experience in platform engineering, site reliability (SRE), or data operations, ideally within a large-scale or regulated environment.
• AWS Experience: Strong working knowledge of AWS and cloud-first data pipeline orchestration tools such as Airflow, Glue, or EMR.
• A Security Mindset: Understanding of compliance and security when managing sensitive data pipelines.
• Strong Automation Skills: Comfortable using Python and Shell scripting to automate systems, manage dependencies, and handle large batch environments.
• A Great Collaborator: Enjoys mentoring others, coordinates smoothly with distributed teams (onsite/offshore), and explains technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
  
  This is a permanent position based in our Nottingham office. We offer a hybrid working model: work from office and from home, with office presence three days a week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
What's in It for You
• Pension scheme, bonus, generous holiday entitlement, private medical insurance - plus flexible benefits such as season-ticket loans, cycle-to-work scheme, and enhanced parental leave.
• High-performer career progression, investment in training through Capital One University and external providers.
• Open-plan workspaces and facilities designed to inspire and support you.
• Nottingham head-office includes a fully-serviced gym, subsidised restaurant and dedicated development resources.