Senior Data Engineer, UnderwriteMe
Data Migration, Contract
1+ day a week in office
Building software products for the life insurance market
Posted today
Building software products for the life insurance market
101-200 employees
Posted today
1+ day a week in office
101-200 employees
Company mission
Using tech to ensure everyone who wants life insurance can access it.
Role
Who you are
- This is a hands-on engineering role that requires strong technical expertise, practical migration experience, and the ability to work closely with data teams and business stakeholders
- If you’re passionate about building scalable, maintainable data pipelines and thrive in fast-paced environments, we’d love to meet you
- To succeed in this role, you will need to be more than just a great data engineer. We're looking for someone who thrives in high-pressure environments, loves solving complex problems, and can take ownership of major technical initiatives
- Has deep hands-on experience with dbt Cloud and Snowflake, and understands the best practices of building scalable data model and pipelines
- Has successfully migrated legacy data systems to modern cloud-native architectures
- Is a skilled problem-solver and troubleshooter, capable of diagnosing complex data issues quickly and effectively
- Works resourcefully and independently while also collaborating closely with cross-functional teams
- Thrives under pressure, is delivery-focused, and can balance multiple priorities in a fast-moving environment
- Is detail-oriented and values clean, well-documented, testable code
- Communicates clearly, openly, and constructively
- Significant experience in data engineering roles, including leading or participating in data platform migrations
- Strong hands-on experience with:
- Dbt Cloud (modular development, CI/CD integration, testing, and documentation)
- Snowflake (performance tuning, SQL, role-based access, cost optimisation)
- SQL (analytical, transformation, and optimisation)
- Working knowledge of legacy tools like Talend and Jenkins, and an understanding of their migration challenges
- Familiarity with version control (Git) and modern deployment workflows
- Proficiency in troubleshooting data pipeline failures and performance bottlenecks
- Experience with data pipeline orchestration (Airflow or similar is a plus)
Desirable
- Exposure to other parts of the modern data stack (e.g., Fivetran, dbt Metrics Layer, Tableau)
- Experience in CI/CD pipeline tooling and Infrastructure as Code (e.g., GitHub Actions, Terraform)
- Understanding of data governance, privacy, and compliance best practices (e.g., GDPR, SOC 2)
What the job involves
- Decision Platform - a B2B enterprise platform that provides a best-in-market Underwriting Rules Engine used by over 30 insurers to power their underwriting decisions
- The product is sold across UK & Ireland, Asia-Pacific and North America. The platform combines our engine with technology to source and process third-party information supporting underwriting decisions for insurers. We are already working on capabilities, powered by AI, to make these decisions even more efficient
- We are looking for a Senior Data Engineer to play a critical role in modernizing our data infrastructure
- This position will focus on migrating existing data pipelines from our legacy platform—primarily built on Talend and Jenkins—to our modern data stack powered by dbt Cloud and Snowflake
- Contribute towards the end-to-end design and migration of data pipelines from Talend/Jenkins to dbt Cloud and Snowflake
- Spearhead the migration of legacy data pipelines from Jenkins/Talend to dbt/Snowflake, ensuring data integrity, reliability, and optimal performance
- Collaborate with data engineers, analysts, and business teams to translate existing business logic and workflows into modular dbt models
- Identify, document, and refactor legacy processes for performance, maintainability, and scalability
- Implement CI/CD best practices for data transformation using dbt Cloud and Git-based workflows
- Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize pipeline performance and ensure data integrity across data platform
- Contribute to defining and improving data engineering standards, documentation, and best practices
- Provide technical mentorship and help guide junior engineers during the platform migration
- You’d be working with a team of highly technical experts made up of people with backgrounds in software, fintech, and insurance
- Every person in our global team is valued for the unique qualities they bring to our business and we seek to build their expertise and support their individual ambitions at every step
- Of course, we take our work seriously and we know our team can operate under great pressure
- We work hard and thrive on achievement, but we also know how to have fun and relax too. We regularly host a range of team building days to strengthen our team's connection with each other and reflect on their successes
Salary benchmarks
Our take
UnderwriteMe was founded in 2012 to shake up the UK insurance sector. At the time, life insurance underwriting was an inefficient process typified by a fractured market, slow processes, and non-standardised evidence. UnderwriteMe released its Underwriting Engine which untangled and greatly accelerated the process, allowing it to grow to become the leading provider of insurance tech products across Europe, Asia, and North America.
As a tech-first company, UnderwriteMe has continued to develop its product, innovating to remain at the forefront of the insurance tech sector. It has moved into AI, with its Text Mining Lab that uses natural language processing to read unstructured medical reports and automatically convert them into usable data. It has also formed major strategic partnerships to improve the product, one example being with United Healthcare Group, allowing medical screening requests to be sent electronically. This further shortens the underwriting decision-making process for users of the platform.
Its focus on innovation and strategic partnerships has yielded success, generating significant buzz in the insurance sector and more than 50% year-on-year growth. Moving ahead it will continue to develop its product, doubling down on AI-augmented decision-making tools to further increase the efficiency of the underwriting process.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Meet the team
60 people
Indigo King, Principal Machine Learning Engineer
Our mission
Shaping the future of life insurance underwriting through AIInsights
19% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Employee endorsements
Career progression
"Still being fairly small (150 people) and scaling means people can make an impact and be involved in projects, uncover new opportunities and..."
Company benefits
- Life Assurance - The Company provides a lump sum benefit payment, 9x salary
- Group Income Protection - The aim is to provide an income to employees if they are unable to work long-term, as a result of an illness or injury. 75% of basic salary
- Private Medical Insurance - Provided for all employees via Bupa Healthcare
- Stakeholder Pension Scheme - Up to 15%. The Company offers a group stakeholder pension to aid employees in planning for their future
- Money towards remote setup - £350 for you to be set up and comfortable working remotely
- Employee Assistance Programme - Providing employees with third-party advice on a variety of topics including mental health
- Subsidised Gym Membership - The company subsidises memberships to any gym of employees' choice
- Enhanced Maternity and Paternity scheme
- Bonus Scheme - based on individual and company performance
- 30 days a year working remotely - The opportunity to work abroad or from your home country (for those who may have moved country). This can be broken up through the year
- 24/7 GP Consultation - Through the Employee Assistance Programme, WeCare, employees and their families have access to a UK-based GP anytime it's needed
- Cycle 2 Work Scheme - Enables employees to purchase cycling equipment tax-free by paying for it in installments through salary sacrifice deductions
- 25 days holiday plus company closure for wellbeing days (4x extra days off in 2023)
Company values
- Impact Oriented: Driven by meaningful results, prioritising actions that deliver significant outcomes and contribute to team success. Motivated by value creation and business impact, not titles or status.
- Entrepreneurial: Demonstrate initiative and a proactive approach to identifying and seizing the right opportunities. Show resilience in the face of challenges and maintains a bias for action.
- Curiosity: Exhibit a strong desire to learn and understand new concepts. Approach problems with creativity and persistence, consistently seeking effective solutions.
- Technically Great: Possess a deep understanding of relevant technical skills and knowledge applicable to job role . Apply technical expertise effectively to solve complex issues.
- Strategic Thinkers: Demonstrate an understanding of the broader impact of their role and decisions. Effectively balances immediate actions with strategic planning to ensure alignment with medium-term and long-term organisational objectives.
- Adaptability: Open to feedback and willing to learn from others. Show a growth mindset and the ability to adapt and improve.
Company HQ
St Katharine's & Wapping, London, UK
Articles
Leadership
Andrew Doran
(CEO)Prevously Global Chief Underwriter at Pacif Life Re and was an Underwriting Strategy Manager for Aviva.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at UnderwriteMe
Nana (Gyasi)
- Fostering cultural awareness in our organisation
- Enhancing the diversity within our Underwrite Me team
- Reviving our learning curriculum to enhance DE&I knowledge
- Building on our existing affinity groups and DE&I initiatives
- Optimising our hiring practices and removing bias
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