Senior Data Engineer

About Marshmallow

We started Marshmallow when we found out how unfair insurance prices are for people who move to the UK. All because the industry hasn’t given this huge cohort of people a second’s thought, and isn’t set up to price them properly. 

We saw an opportunity to do things differently, so we made it our mission to back the ones who step outside the norm. Since we started, we’ve helped 100,000s of people get a fairer deal on their car insurance. Using technology, we serve people that are often overlooked by financial services companies, solving important problems for people who need it most. 

We know there are millions of marginalised customers out there. And we know that they face unique problems that most companies aren’t even aware of. We believe that our future is helping these people by learning about their experiences, and building our company around their needs. And there are strong signs that there’s a need for a company like us. Earlier this year we hit profitability, which is a huge milestone, but the most exciting thing is that we’re only just getting started.

How we work

We’re really proud of the culture we’ve created. We push for progress every day, because we know that we’ll only hit big milestones by taking lots of smaller steps. We’re always open to helping our team mates, sharing our ideas, experience and knowledge to solve problems together. We take risks, think creatively and experiment relentlessly to meet our customer’s needs, and never pass blame when things go wrong. We encourage people at all levels to take ownership of their work, and to be bold in challenging how we do things. Everyone has a voice and the opportunity to make an impact. 

And autonomy and ownership are only possible with clear direction. That’s why we collaborate to do in-depth planning twice a year, and make sure we leave with clear goals and objectives that flow from top to bottom. To make sure we’re as aligned as possible across functions, most of our work rolls up into four tribes; Acquisition, Retention, Claims and Pricing, Underwriting & Fraud. Each tribe has multiple teams embedded in it, working cross-functionally to do great work.

We’re so excited for all of the challenges up ahead, and we need more people to help us tackle them! If life at Marshmallow sounds like it could be for you, explore our culture handbook or read our blog to find out more.

The Data Engineering Team

Insurers thrive on data, and Marshmallow competes in one of the world's most advanced markets globally. To fulfil our mission, our data teams must be exceptional, equipped to solve complex problems with intelligence and passion. We're committed to empowering our teams and individuals through data. We collaborate across departments, championing a data-driven culture, breaking down silos, and promoting tools for self-service.

Learn about our teams and how our engineers work here!

Why This Role Is Exciting

• High Impact: You'll solve tough problems in one of the most competitive insurance markets, working with cutting-edge data tools and technologies. In our tight-knit team, your contributions will have a significant and visible impact on our business and growth.

• Data-Driven Excellence: Our systems must make millions of predictions, decisions, and risk assessments daily. To succeed, we need to be the best at sourcing, leveraging, and acting on data faster than others.

• Meaningful Work: Your efforts will positively impact people who are often financially disadvantaged when they arrive in the UK.

• Innovative Tech Stack: Work with modern tools like Snowflake, DBT, AWS Kinesis, Step Functions, Airflow, Datahub, and Looker.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Platform Ownership: As the subject matter expert for our data platform, you'll manage and enhance core components like DBT, Snowflake, AWS (S3, Kinisis, DMS, Step Functions, Dynamo CDC, Backup), Airbyte, Transcend, Segment and Looker.

• Holistic Understanding: Develop a deep understanding of our entire data platform to safely and effectively work across the data stack.

• User Collaboration: Work closely with platform users to ensure optimal usability and performance, driving long-term strategies to maximise value for the business. Key stakeholders will include our tribes, product engineers, data scientists, analytics engineers, and data analysts.

• Cross-Functional Leadership: Collaborate with leadership across the organisation to deliver on key data platform initiatives, product initiatives and compliance and InfoSec operations.

• Champion Best Practices: Promote best practices in data quality, governance, and fostering a healthy self-service data culture.

• Autonomy & Ownership: Take full ownership of your work, from end to end.

• Innovation: Experiment and solve complex problems in novel ways to enhance our data capabilities.

Who You Are

• Data Platform Experience: You have commercial experience improving and developing production data platforms in data-intensive organisations.

• OLAP & Data Warehousing: Deep understanding of OLAP databases, architectures, and general data warehousing concepts.

• AWS Expertise: Proficient with AWS services like S3, Kinesis, Lambda, and Glue, and how they combine to create an effective data platform.

• Data Orchestration: Familiar with orchestration tools like Airflow or AWS Step Functions.

• SQL & Data Modelling: Advanced SQL skills and experience in data modelling.

• Technical Proficiency: Skilled in Python, DBT, Terraform, and Docker (Java is a plus).

• Proactive Problem Solver: You identify and act on opportunities to improve your work and the work of those around you.

• Data Pipeline Excellence: Experience building reliable, detail-oriented data pipelines with a strong focus on data quality.

• BI Tooling: Exposure to Looker or similar BI tools is a plus.

Perks of the job

• Hybrid working - Spend  3 days a week with your team in our collaborative London office

• Competitive bonus scheme - designed to reward and recognise high-performance

• Flexible benefits budget - £50 per month to spend on a Ben Mastercard meaning you get your own benefits budget to spend on things you want. Whether that’s subscriptions, night classes (puppy yoga, anyone?), the big shop or a forest of houseplants. Pretty much anything goes

• Sabbatical Leave - Get a 4-week fully paid sabbatical after being with us for 4 years

• Work From Anywhere - 4 weeks of work from anywhere to use, with no need to come to the office

• Mental wellbeing support – Access therapy and mental health sessions through Oliva

• Learning and development – Personal budgets for books and training courses to help you grow in your role. Plus 2 days a year - on us! - to further your skillset

• Private health care - Enjoy all the benefits Vitality has to offer, including reduced gym memberships and discounts on smartwatches

• Medical cash plan - To help you with the costs of dental, optical and physio (plus more!)

• Tech scheme - Get the latest tech for less

Plus all the rest; 33 days holiday, pension, cycle-to-work scheme, monthly team socials and company-wide socials every month!

Our Process

We break it up into 4 stages:

1. Initial call with one of our Talent team (30 mins)

2. A skill-based where you will go through your past experience with the hiring manager

3. A technical interview focusing on both architecture and coding (1 hour)

4. Final behaviour based cultural interview (1 hour)

Everyone belongs at Marshmallow

At Marshmallow, we want to hire people from all walks of life with the passion and skills needed to help us achieve our company mission. To do that, we're committed to hiring without judgement, prejudice or bias.

We encourage everyone to apply for our open roles. Gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or background does not affect how we process job applications.

We're working hard to build an inclusive culture that empowers our people to do their best work, have fun and feel that they belong.

Recruitment privacy policy

We take privacy seriously here at Marshmallow. Our Recruitment privacy notice explains how we process and handle your personal data. To find out more please view it here.