Senior Data Engineer - Data Migration (Contract)

Senior Data Engineer - Data Migration (Contract) page is loaded Senior Data Engineer - Data Migration (Contract) Apply locations London, UK time type Full time posted on Posted 5 Days Ago job requisition id R14816 Job Title

Senior Data Engineer - Data Migration (Contract) Job Description

Senior Data Engineer - day rate contract

UnderwriteMe is a UK based Insurtech creating disruptive SaaS solutions for the insurance industry. We are on a mission to make life insurance more widely accessible, providing technology to ensure people and their loved ones are protected when the inevitable happens.

We are wholly owned by Pacific Life, but operate as an autonomous business within the company. This gives us the best of both worlds - the freedom to act like a technology scale-up, with the stability of a large company meaning longer-term thinking and no last minute pivots to gain our next funding round. Pacific Life Re became 100% shareholder of UnderwriteMe in 2017 given the strategic synergy with its reinsurance business.

UnderwriteMe has two main products we sell to customers:

• Decision Platform - a B2B enterprise platform that provides a best-in-market Underwriting Rules Engine used by over 30 insurers to power their underwriting decisions. The product is sold across UK & Ireland, Asia-Pacific and North America. The platform combines our engine with technology to source and process third-party information supporting underwriting decisions for insurers. We are already working on capabilities, powered by AI, to make these decisions even more efficient.
• Protection Platform - a B2B2C marketplace used by over 15,000 advisors to power quoting and purchase of protection products in the UK. We currently deliver 16% of the UK markets protection policies and we are already working to increase our reach.

UnderwriteMe is part-way through a multi-year transformation to adopt a Product Operating Model, modernising our architecture and moving our products to a SaaS model. We still have much to do, and we're looking for people to join us on this challenging and exciting journey.

Pacific Life and UnderwriteMe are both organisations focussed on creating a great environment in which to work. We recognise that attracting and retaining top talent is how we continue to improve the company. We pay well and as we are part of a mature organisation, we have a good benefits package. We value and celebrate diversity in our teams and continually work to celebrate the uniqueness of each person. We work in a hybrid model and we expect our leaders to flex where they work based on the needs of the company and their teams.

The Role
We are looking for a Senior Data Engineer to play a critical role in modernizing our data infrastructure. This position will focus on migrating existing data pipelines from our legacy platform-primarily built on Talend and Jenkins-to our modern data stack powered by dbt Cloud and Snowflake.

This is a hands-on engineering role that requires strong technical expertise, practical migration experience, and the ability to work closely with data teams and business stakeholders. If you're passionate about building scalable, maintainable data pipelines and thrive in fast-paced environments, we'd love to meet you.

What you will be doing
Contribute towards the end-to-end design and migration of data pipelines from Talend/Jenkins to dbt Cloud and Snowflake

Spearhead the migration of legacy data pipelines from Jenkins/Talend to dbt/Snowflake, ensuring data integrity, reliability, and optimal performance

Collaborate with data engineers, analysts, and business teams to translate existing business logic and workflows into modular dbt models

Identify, document, and refactor legacy processes for performance, maintainability, and scalability

Implement CI/CD best practices for data transformation using dbt Cloud and Git-based workflows

Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize pipeline performance and ensure data integrity across data platform

Contribute to defining and improving data engineering standards, documentation, and best practices

Provide technical mentorship and help guide junior engineers during the platform migration

What type of person fits the role
To succeed in this role, you will need to be more than just a great data engineer. We're looking for someone who thrives in high-pressure environments, loves solving complex problems, and can take ownership of major technical initiatives.

We are looking for someone who:

Has deep hands-on experience with dbt Cloud and Snowflake, and understands the best practices of building scalable data model and pipelines

Has successfully migrated legacy data systems to modern cloud-native architectures

Is a skilled problem-solver and troubleshooter, capable of diagnosing complex data issues quickly and effectively

Works resourcefully and independently while also collaborating closely with cross-functional teams

Thrives under pressure, is delivery-focused, and can balance multiple priorities in a fast-moving environment

Is detail-oriented and values clean, well-documented, testable code

Communicates clearly, openly, and constructively

Technical Requirements

Must-have experience:

• Significant experience in data engineering roles, including leading or participating in data platform migrations
• Strong hands-on experience with:
• dbt Cloud (modular development, CI/CD integration, testing, and documentation)
• Snowflake (performance tuning, SQL, role-based access, cost optimisation)
• SQL (analytical, transformation, and optimisation)
• Working knowledge of legacy tools like Talend and Jenkins, and an understanding of their migration challenges
• Familiarity with version control (Git) and modern deployment workflows
• Proficiency in troubleshooting data pipeline failures and performance bottlenecks
• Experience with data pipeline orchestration (Airflow or similar is a plus)

Nice-to-have experience:

• Exposure to other parts of the modern data stack (e.g., Fivetran, dbt Metrics Layer, Tableau)
• Experience in CI/CD pipeline tooling and Infrastructure as Code (e.g., GitHub Actions, Terraform)
• Understanding of data governance, privacy, and compliance best practices (e.g., GDPR, SOC 2)

About UnderwriteMe

UnderwriteMe is an Insurtech software business and subsidiary of Pacific Life Re (PL Re), a global life and pensions reinsurance firm. We have a vision to help everyone purchase protection insurance by using data and disruptive technology to transform our partners and markets in order to make their underwriting processes as quick and efficient as possible.

Our core products are:
• a best-in-market Underwriting Rules Engine which can be used to automate any structured data within the underwriting journey, and which is sold in the UK & Ireland, Asia-Pacific and North America
• the Protection Platform, an end-to-end quote and buy marketplace for Protection in the UK

Working for UnderwriteMe

Joining UnderwriteMe means being part of a technology company that is committed to bringing a fresh and dynamic approach to insurance. You'd be working with a team of highly technical experts made up of people with backgrounds in software, fintech, and insurance. Every person in our global team is valued for the unique qualities they bring to our business and we seek to build their expertise and support their individual ambitions at every step.

Of course, we take our work seriously and we know our team can operate under great pressure. We work hard and thrive on achievement, but we also know how to have fun and relax too. We regularly host a range of team building days to strengthen our team's connection with each other and reflect on their successes.

Providing employees with a healthy work-life balance is very important to our culture. We have a wide range of employee benefits and we host regular social activities and wellbeing initiatives. We are also committed to supporting our employee's involvement in their communities, by actively fundraising, hosting charity events, and overseeing volunteering opportunities.

Benefits (Only for Permanent and Fixed Term Employees)

• Stakeholder Pension Scheme
• Life Assurance
• Subsidised Gym Membership
• Private Medical Insurance
• Season Ticket Loan
• Eye Care
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Group Income Protection
• Wellness Benefits

As part of our commitment to accessibility for all, UnderwriteMe will, upon the request of the applicant, provide accommodation during the recruitment process to ensure equal access to applicants with disabilities. Please contact us about your needs, and we will consult with you to ensure suitable accommodation is provided.

UnderwriteMe Values

Please click here to view our company values

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UnderwriteMe is transforming the life insurance industry through technology by bringing Insurers, Intermediaries and Customers closer together in the marketplace. We recognise the need to change the life insurance application journey from a complicated, inefficient experience to one that makes the buying process easier and faster for customers and advisers alike. Founded in 2012 . click apply for full job details