Consulting/Principal Software Engineer

About our Team

The Enterprise Data Platforms and Services (EDPS) team are a central technology group
responsible for building, administering, governing, and setting global standards for a growing
number of Elsevier strategic data platforms and services.  The capabilities we are responsible
for enable data to be collected, accessed, processed, and integrated across a wide range of
digital business solutions, used by functions including billing and order management, customer
and product master data management, and business analytics and insights delivery.  Due to
our footprint across the enterprise, we are relied upon to ensure our systems are trusted,
reliable and available. The technology underpinning these capabilities includes industry
leading data and analytics products such as Snowflake, Tableau, Collibra, Kafka, Airflow, and
Kubernetes.  
This group has been created recently as part of a longer-term strategic direction to implement
Data Mesh, and with it establish shared platforms that enables a connected collection of
enterprise-ready time saving services.  Our mission is to enable frictionless experiences for all
Elsevier colleagues, so that they can openly and securely consume and produce trustworthy
data, enhancing everyday colleague and customer interactions and decisions. 

About the role

We are looking for an experienced software engineer to build components of our Enterprise
Data Platform that are critical to both operational and analytical use cases. There will be an
opportunity to work on a modern data stack to create frictionless and trusted self-service
capabilities. This role will be expected to build standardised modules and patterns that assist
Elsevier teams to onboard onto the Platform. In practice, this will mean having a deep
understanding about the business needs and designing a technical architecture that is fit-for-
purpose. You will be expected to collaborate closely with other technology teams to ensure
that we are driving a culture of contributing towards shared services.
Your success will ultimately be measured by your technical leadership and application of
engineering best practices, the user experience when interacting with our teams and
platforms, and the adoption of our capabilities and services.

Your responsibilities

• Lead the design and build of enterprise ready data integration patterns while demonstrating a deep understanding of data lake and ETL / ELT architecture, including data management techniques.
• Drive the development of self-service capabilities to achieve automation of repetitive tasks and abstract away landscape complexity, ensuring they are easy to use by technical and non-technical audiences.
• Govern implementation of best practices through application of industry techniques, thorough and regular code reviews, and well documented and articulated code.
• Analyse complex technical issues affecting the platform, prioritize their resolution, and communicate findings and decisions to relevant stakeholders.
• Guide users on how to best leverage platform components by supporting solution design and architecture, ensuring you are relied upon as a subject matter expert on major capabilities.
• Support strategy decisions by regularly conducting proof-of-concepts, carrying out assessments of vendors and technologies, and capturing findings against key evaluation criteria.
• Coach and mentor junior members of the team, and support translating user requirements and technical architecture into user stories for co-workers to develop.

Requirements

• Hands-on knowledge of the AWS Cloud ecosystem, with demonstrable experience of building secure, production grade data solutions and applications hosted on AWS.
• Extensive use of Python for programming and data manipulation, showing an ability to develop reusable and deployable modules for ETL / ELT data pipelines, including data orchestration.
• Use of Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment techniques and principles for more effective and efficient software development lifecycle.
• Understanding of modern API architectures for reading and writing data from/to backend applications, and as a mechanism of accessing functionality through programmatic access (experience building APIs is a bonus).
• Practical knowledge of working with open table formats (e.g. ICEBERG and DELTA) and open file formats (e.g. Parquet, Acro) for large data volumes.
• Technical leadership with demonstrable success leading and guiding a team on technical best practices, whilst ensuring the team stays on track to meet key results and objectives.
• Exposure to eco-system of modern analytical tools and techniques (e.g. Snowflake, Tableau, DBT, Fivetran, Databricks, Data Mesh).

Your most important qualities

• Passion for data engineering and continuous improvement, with a desire to understand and learn new tools and techniques leading to a deep understanding of industry trends.
• Curiosity to comprehensively understand the solutions that you are responsible for and the ability to represent and communicate those at a senior level through excellent written and verbal communication.
• You are a self-starter who thrives on ambiguity and have a natural drive to connect with your peers and stakeholders to provide structure to complex problems.

Work in a way that works for you
 

We promote a healthy work/life balance across the organisation. With an average length of service of 9 years, we are confident that we offer an appealing working prospect for our people. With numerous wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance and sabbaticals, we will help you meet your immediate responsibilities and your long-term goals.
 

• Working flexible hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit everything in and work when you are the most productive

Working for you
 

We know that your wellbeing and happiness are key to a long and successful career. These are some of the benefits we are delighted to offer:
 - Comprehensive Health Insurance: Covers you, your immediate family, and parents.
 - Enhanced Health Insurance Options: Competitive rates negotiated by the company.
 - Group Life Insurance: Ensuring financial security for your loved ones.
- Group Accident Insurance: Extra protection for accidental death and permanent disablement.
- Flexible Working Arrangement: Achieve a harmonious work-life balance.
- Employee Assistance Program: Access support for personal and work-related challenges.
- Medical Screening: Your well-being is a top priority.
- Modern Family Benefits: Maternity, paternity, and adoption support.
- Long-Service Awards: Recognizing dedication and commitment.
- New Baby Gift: Celebrating the joy of parenthood.
- Subsidized Meals in Chennai: Enjoy delicious meals at discounted rates.
- Various Paid Time Off: Take time off with Casual Leave, Sick Leave, Privilege Leave, Compassionate Leave, Special Sick Leave, and Gazetted Public Holidays.
- Free Transport pick up and drop from the home -office - home (applies in Chennai)
 

About the Business
 

A global leader in information and analytics, we help researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. Building on our publishing heritage, we combine quality information and vast data sets with analytics to support visionary science and research, health education and interactive learning, as well as exceptional healthcare and clinical practice. At Elsevier, your work contributes to the world’s grand challenges and a more sustainable future. We harness innovative technologies to support science and healthcare to partner for a better world.