Senior Data Engineer

Senior Data Engineer | Data Engineering Platform | Hybrid Working | Krakow

Introduction:

We are Ocado Group, and we're bringing world-class automation to online grocery. Our Ocado Smart Platform (OSP) combines cutting-edge robotics, AI, and IoT within our advanced CFCs (Customer Fulfilment Centres). We've mastered the single pick, transforming online delivery for our global partners. Join us and be part of a team pushing the boundaries of retail technology.

About the Role As a Data Engineer within our Data Engineering Platform team, you will be responsible for building, operating, and enhancing the core infrastructure, services, and data pipelines that power analytics and reporting across two of our key warehouse automation and fulfilment platforms: Ocado Smart Platform (OSP) and Ocado Mobile Robotics Solutions (OMRS). You will work closely across the stack—moving seamlessly between application code, data pipelines, and infrastructure—while driving platform modernisation by tackling technical debt, tuning Airflow orchestration, and optimizing cloud resource usage.

In this role, you will play an active part in monitoring, alerting, and incident response to maintain system health and ensure issues are resolved before they impact our customers. Additionally, you will maintain and improve a live, customer-facing slot-availability application, focusing on high reliability and optimal performance. Working as part of a collaborative, distributed team, you will partner with engineering groups across Ocado Group to deliver scalable, cost-effective data capabilities and secure interfaces for stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, run, and improve data pipelines, backend services, and APIs powering analytics and reporting for OSP and OMRS.


• Write and evolve Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/OpenTofu) for cloud environments.


• Modernise the platform by untangling technical debt and tuning Airflow/Composer (right-sizing pools, setting K8s resource requests, and optimising DAGs).


• Improve platform efficiency and cloud infrastructure costs by identifying wasteful queries, idle resources, and optimising BigQuery usage.


• Participate in monitoring, alerting, and incident response to maintain system health and customer trust.


• Maintain and enhance the reliability and performance of a live, customer-facing slot-availability application.


• Collaborate closely with distributed engineering teams and key stakeholders across Ocado Group.

What We’re Looking For

Essential

• Solid software engineering experience in Python.


• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, or similar like Ansible/CloudFormation) on GCP or another major cloud provider.


• Strong grasp of core DevOps practices, including source control workflows, CI/CD, and deployment strategy design.


• Comfort working across the stack, moving between application code, pipelines, and infrastructure.


• Pragmatic, ownership-minded approach with the ability to tackle ambiguous problems and adapt to shifting priorities.


• Fluent written and spoken English with hands-on exposure to Python, TypeScript, Terraform, GCP, BigQuery, Airflow, CI/CD, and PostgreSQL.

Nice to Haves

• Experience with TypeScript/Node.js.


• Advanced hands-on Airflow experience beyond writing DAGs (e.g., tuning scheduler pools, resource allocation, and diagnosing slow pipelines).


• Exposure to dbt, BigQuery, or other cloud data warehouse tooling.


• Experience supporting live, customer-facing production systems, Unix/Linux environments, and core security principles (least privilege, separation of duties).

This role description summarises the typical functions of the role. It is not an exhaustive list of all possible responsibilities, tasks, or duties.

Benefits: What’s in it for you? 

Work and life should fit together, so we offer a range of benefits focusing on well-being, development, and team spirit. The final package will depend on the contract type we agree on.

• Standard benefits: life insurance, private health care [Luxmed], Multisport card, lunch vouchers, company share programs, and assistance for everyday worries and serious health problems.


• Learning opportunities: access to the Learnebly platform and LinkedIn Learning, English classes, and a book library, 


• Parental support: additional +10 days maternity / +20 days paternity leave, funding for nurseries and kindergartens


• Hybrid model: 2 days/week in the office and flexibility to work from almost any location for up to 30 days a year.


• Office perks: centrally located offices with car and cycling parking, and home office equipment provided.


• Career growth: a clear career path with opportunities to rotate between projects, teams, domains and roles under the guidance of highly skilled senior colleagues 


• High engineering culture: unique software engineering culture with a high level of test coverage and agile environment [read about our tech stack and engineering
  practices across Ocado Technology]


• Speaker community: public speaking training and support for preparing presentations at conferences or meetups, including our own Ocado Technology Meetups


• Passions groups: running, cycling and more 


• Annual celebrations: carnival, summer parties, family picnics, or kid’s days.

At Ocado Technology, we're always exploring, learning, and implementing new initiatives, and we're eager to share stories, insights, and experiences with you. Meet our team members during meetups [Watch recordings here]

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