Senior Data Platform Engineer

Senior Data Platform Engineer

London | Permanent

Morela is proud to be supporting a private, family-owned real estate investment group in the search for a Senior Data Platform Engineer. This is the senior, strategic hire on a newly-built internal data platform, based in London. The client’s identity will be shared on introduction.

About the Client

Our client is a private, entrepreneurial, family-owned real estate platform with a significant property portfolio and associated finance operations. The business is investing in a small internal engineering function to build out its data capability from the ground up – starting with a first phase of work connecting specialist domains including property management, asset management and accounting into a single internal data platform.

The Role

This is a founding, strategic role rather than one joining an established system. You will set the direction of the data platform and make the key data structure and architecture decisions from the ground up, working alongside a Junior Data Engineer who you will support and help develop. Expect genuine ownership from day one – the decisions you make now will shape how the organisation works with data for years to come.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction and architecture for the organisation’s internal data platform
• Design and build the core Python codebase and database responsible for ingesting, cleaning, validating and reconciling data from internal and third-party sources
• Design and build REST APIs to serve as the bedrock of the internal platform
• Establish trusted datasets for asset management, defining validation rules and data definitions
• Turn manual collection, checking, reconciliation, reminders, document generation and reporting into dependable, automated workflows
• Oversee the development of dashboards, reports, alerts and internal tools across investment, asset management, finance and operations functions
• Guide the development of document extraction, retrieval and LLM-based workflows, including testing, evals and human-in-the-loop review
• Support and mentor a Junior Data Engineer, setting standards for code quality, testing and documentation

Essential Requirements

• Proven, senior-level experience designing and building data platforms and architecture from the ground up
• Strong programming fundamentals in Python, TypeScript and SQL
• Deep experience with relational databases, data modelling, APIs and ETL/ELT pipelines
• A track record of taking systems from prototype to reliable production use
• The patience to trace messy data through unfamiliar systems, identify root causes and verify that a solution works
• A commercially minded, out-of-the-box thinker with an appetite to build and scale a platform
• The ability to explain technical decisions clearly to colleagues who do not write code
• Experience mentoring or supporting more junior engineers

Desirable Experience

• Experience with cloud platforms, Docker, data warehouses or business-intelligence tools
• Practical exposure to LLM APIs, retrieval, evaluation, OCR or document-processing workflows
• Interest in real estate, finance, accounting, asset management, construction or how operational businesses actually use data
• Evidence of having built and scaled a data platform or product from an early stage

Working Environment

This is a full-time, permanent role based in London, working closely alongside a Junior Data Engineer within a small, entrepreneurial internal team. You will have genuine scope to shape the platform as it is built, with real influence over how the organisation works with data going forward.