Lead Data Engineer

Lead Data Engineer
- MLOps
Job Description

We are looking for a Lead MLOps Data Engineer to join our eCommerce Data team at NEXT.
Based from NEXT Head Office in Leicestershire with a competitive salary range of £64,000 -
£79,000 with great benefits!
Let’s talk numbers. When it comes to UK retail, it’s hard to find a bigger name. We sell
thousands of items an hour and are expanding our e-commerce business by the second. For
anyone in Tech, this is the place to learn. To grow. And to thrive.
eCommerce Data provides the department and the business the means to see what is
working and what is not by drawing data and analysing patterns of shopping on our site
and in general.
About the role
As a Lead MLOps Data Engineer within the eCommerce Data team at NEXT your role will
involve building and maintaining robust data pipelines and deploying machine learning
models into production. You will work closely with data scientists, software engineers, and IT
teams to ensure seamless integration and operation of data and machine learning systems.
What else is involved?
Data Engineering
● Design, develop, and maintain scalable data pipelines and ETL processes.
● Ensure data quality, integrity, and security across all data platforms.
● Collaborate with data scientists to understand data requirements and provide
necessary data infrastructure.
● Manage and optimize databases and data warehouses for performance and
scalability.
ML Ops

● Develop algorithms and models to solve specific problems.
● Train and fine-tune models using large datasets.
● Implement machine learning pipelines and workflows.
● Optimize models for performance and scalability.
● Collaborate with data scientists to translate prototypes into production-ready
solutions.
● Monitor and maintain deployed models to ensure they perform as expected.
You’ll be doing all this from our Leicestershire Head Office. Our offices are inspiring, yes. But
we understand that life happens. So, we’re big on making sure your work, works for you
which is why we offer flexible working.
Bring your energy. Play to your strengths. Make things bigger and better than before.
What we’re looking for
● Strong knowledge of Python, Spark and SQL and experience with relational and
NoSQL databases.
● Knowledge of data preprocessing and feature engineering.
● Advanced expertise in Spark to be able to scale data science models on large
datasets efficiently while keeping cloud costs down.
● Experience with machine learning frameworks such as MLFlow, TensorFlow, PyTorch,
or Scikit-learn.
● Understanding of CI/CD tools and practices for machine learning.
● Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
So if you have proven experience within Data Engineering with great communication skills
and the ability to translate business needs to technical requirements for building data
engineering solutions, this is the place for you - and your career.
Benefits
● Competitive salary band of £64,000 - £79,000
● Flexible working
● Annual company performance based bonus
● Sharesave scheme, which allows you to invest in NEXT and claim your share of our
success
● Annual Pay Reward
● Pension 3% Employer/ 5% Employee
● 25 days holiday plus bank holidays (can also buy/sell up to 3 days)
● 25% staff discount and free next day delivery to desk for online purchases
● A newly refurbished subsidised restaurant and bar
● Staff shops in Yorkshire and Leicestershire
● Juice bar and coffee shop
● Gympass - discounted gym membership
● Free company bus service to and from Leicester city centre and other areas
● Onsite nursery (salary sacrifice scheme) in Leicester
● A digital GP healthcare service
● & loads more!

The business
You know NEXT, but did you know we’re a FTSE-100 retail company employing over 43,000
people across the UK and Ireland. We’re the UK’s 2nd largest fashion retailer and for
Kidswear we’re the market leader. At the last count, we have over 500 stores, plus NEXT
Online and it’s now possible to buy online from over 70 countries around the world.