Lead Data Engineer (UK)
Function: Data Engineering, Analytics & Science.
Responsibility: Data Pipeline Architecture | Data Warehousing | AI-Enabled Analytics
Reports to: COO
Location: Remote
About Soar With Us
Founded by Olly Hudson and Joe Marston in 2019, Soar With Us is one of the fastest-growing advertising agencies for e-commerce brands in the UK, with a team of 40 A-Players. In 2024, we spent over £250m on Meta, Google, and TikTok ads profitably for our clients, including the likes of The Essence Vault, Art of Football, Bee Inspired, and many more.
In 2025, we are raising the bar on how we serve our clients. As part of this evolution, we’re investing in building a world-class internal data function to clean, organise, and analyse performance data across all client ad accounts. By improving the way we collect and manage data, we aim to unlock faster, smarter decision-making that drives even greater results for our clients.
As a Lead Data Engineer, you’ll play a critical role in this mission — working behind the scenes to build pipelines, structure data warehouses, and ensure our client performance data is clean, accessible, and ready for analysis. Your efforts will directly contribute to sharper insights, better business decisions, and next-level client success, all while upholding our core values of extreme ownership, radical curiosity, kind cador, and client-centricity.
Main Responsibilities:
- Architect and build data pipelines from advertising platforms (Meta, Google, TikTok) into a structured warehouse.
- Design and implement scalable data infrastructure using tools like Supabase, Firebase, or AWS RDS/Redshift.
- Create schemas and data models that enable RAG pipelines, AI analysis, and auto-generated insights across all departments.
- Own documentation, data accuracy, redundancy protection, and long-term data scalability.
- Automate weekly performance reports for clients and creative testing analytics.
- Act as the data steward of the organisation: proactive in identifying blind spots, inefficiencies, and unlocks for productisation.
- Collaborate with Growth and Creative teams to translate business roadmaps into technical solutions.
- Embed AI into data processes and workflows to optimise performance, automate tasks, and drive innovation, ensuring we stay at the forefront of the e-commerce and advertising industry.
Requirements
- 3+ years of experience in Data Engineering or Data Infrastructure roles.
- Experience architecting and deploying ETL pipelines.
- Strong command of PostgreSQL, Supabase, Firebase, or equivalent.
- Proficient with Python or TypeScript for data manipulation.
- Understanding of e-commerce, performance marketing metrics, and reporting logic.
- Experience using AI tools and LLMs to query or generate insight from datasets (e.g. OpenAI, LangChain, GPT APIs).
- Bonus: Experience working with vector databases, embeddings, or building RAG frameworks.
- Bonus: Familiar with no-code/low-code tools like n8n, Make, or Zapier.
Who You Are:
- You want to own a project and architect something from scratch.
- You think like a product builder, not just an engineer.
- You want to own at the intersection of AI, e-commerce, and internal tooling where everything you build gets used and matters in a company.
- You thrive on working directly with operators, strategists, and product thinkers.
Why This Role?:
- Zero legacy. You’re not maintaining existing pipelines, you’re building from scratch.
- Immediate impact. What you build in month 1 will be used by 40+ marketers to make decisions daily.
- Real autonomy. You report directly to the COO and will shape how the entire business uses data.
- Career upside. It’s an opportunity to join an environment where you have a chance to be the founding data lead for tools that may become their own SaaS product.
Benefits
- Our incredible client base. We work with a wide range of companies, spanning multiple niches and continents. You will be working in collaboration with some of the fastest-growing and most established DTC e-commerce companies in the world.
- Building your skills. Our diverse service offering and client base ensure that no two days are the same - with opportunities to broaden your skillset at every turn. We’re committed to ensuring that all of our team are constantly developing and evolving toward their own personal goals and you would be no exception!
- Ongoing mentoring. You will get many hours of 1-on-1 coaching/mentorship with our senior management team, and learn to expertly advertise DTC brands which is an incredibly sought-after skill.
- Start-up sensibilities. You have the rare opportunity to work with a 3-year-old agency and have a huge impact on how we do things.
- Flexible, hybrid working. We’re a modern agency, with trust and respect for everyone who works here. As such, we offer the option to work from our vibrant Leeds office, from home, or a combination of both.
- Private health insurance, life insurance, and cash plan enrollment.
- Numerous internal social activities are arranged by our social sec at the end of each month. We also host larger social events at the end of each quarter!
Success in 6 months:
- Successfully migrated our performance data into a queryable database.
- Fully operational data pipelines and automated reporting in place.
- Data warehouse structure is embedded in Soar's ops workflows.
Success in 12 months:
- Internal data infrastructure powers internal tools and supports agent workflows.
- Scalable data structure is in place for future SaaS offerings.
- You're proactively improving pipelines, advising on infra evolution, and mentoring junior analysts.
- You’re recognised as the go-to person for anything that relates to data in the company.
Success in 24 months:
- Established industry-leading internal data processes and tools.
- You're leading a small team of data engineers and analysts.
- Our internal tools are live and generating MRR; your data layer powers the engine.
- Have created various pipelines based on software feedback through a continuous feedback loop and we’re using AI to streamline our processes.
