Lead Data Engineer, OakNorth

Salary not provided

Plus equity

SQL

AWS

GCP

Python

Tableau

Postgres

Airflow

Terraform

MySQL

BigQuery

dbt

Senior and Expert level

London

3+ days a week in office

Digital bank for business loans and savings

Be an early applicant

Digital bank for business loans and savings

201-500 employees

FintechB2CB2BBankingLendingFinancial Services

Be an early applicant

Salary not provided

Plus equity

SQL

AWS

GCP

Python

Tableau

Postgres

Airflow

Terraform

MySQL

BigQuery

dbt

Senior and Expert level

London

3+ days a week in office

201-500 employees

FintechB2CB2BBankingLendingFinancial Services

Company mission

To serve and empower businesses in the Missing Middle, ensuring each and every one of them has the right tools, insights, and support at every stage of their growth journey with us.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

Have 7+ years of experience in data engineering or backend systems, and at least 2+ years in a leadership or technical decision-making role
Are deeply experienced with modern data stacks (e.g. DBT, BigQuery, Airflow, Terraform, GCP/AWS)
Have strong software engineering foundations (Python, SQL, DevOps practices, CI/CD)
Understand data warehousing, ETL/ELT, orchestration, and real-time/streaming data flows
Are outcome-focused: you define success by the business impact you enable
Value simplicity, reliability, and automation
Enjoy collaborating across disciplines and bring excellent communication skills
Care about mentoring others and elevating the standards of your team
Are energised by cross-functional product squads and greenfield opportunities

What the job involves

As a Lead Engineer – Data, you will set the technical direction for OakNorth’s Data function
This is a pivotal leadership role embedded within the Data & Analytics function, shaping our approach to scalable data systems, modern engineering practices, and cross-functional collaboration
You’ll partner closely with the Technical Product Manager to translate strategic priorities into data products that empower lending, finance, analytics, and risk teams across the business
Lead a squad of 4-6 Engineers
Define and lead the technical strategy for the Data Platform and internal data products
Guide architectural decisions and system design for robust, scalable, and secure data infrastructure
Collaborate closely with stakeholders to deliver impactful solutions
Drive technical excellence and standardisation across data practices
Mentor and coach engineers across the data function, creating a culture of growth and innovation
Work across the full stack when needed, with a primary focus on data systems, orchestration, transformation, and cloud infrastructure
Embrace DevOps and continuous delivery – you build it, you run it
Lead by example, coding when required while delegating effectively
You’ll lead initiatives such as:
Designing and implementing scalable data pipelines and data models (e.g., in DBT + BigQuery)
Building a reliable, observable, and automated data platform using modern tools and cloud-native services
Collaborating with the TPM and stakeholders to prioritise initiatives that drive business value
Enhancing governance, lineage, quality monitoring, and security of our data ecosystem
Enabling self-serve data capabilities for analytics and product teams
We’re pragmatic about our tools. You’ll likely work with:
Languages: Python, SQL
Data tools: DBT, BigQuery, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Fivetran, DataHub, Microsoft Fabric
Orchestration: Airflow, Terraform
Cloud: GCP, AWS
Version control & CI/CD: GitHub
Dashboards & Monitoring: Tableau, Cloud Monitoring

Salary benchmarks

Our take

The cost-of-living crisis has put pressure on small and medium-sized businesses, making it harder for them to access the financing they need to thrive. And traditional banks often overlook these businesses, leaving a gap in the market for tailored financial solutions.

OakNorth is filling this gap, with its digital bank that provides loans to lower mid-market businesses. By leveraging advanced technology and data analytics, it offers better lending solutions compared to traditional banks.

Its impact is growing too. As of early 2025, it surpassed $1B in lending to US businesses since launching operations there in mid-2023. This is a huge milestone and one that reflects the demand for its services. With this success, the company is in a great position to continue expanding and helping even more businesses achieve their growth objectives.

Kirsty

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Insights

Top investors

27% female employees

26% employee growth in 12 months

Glassdoor (3.6)

Trustpilot (4.8)

Company

Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)

Feb 2019

$440m

GROWTH EQUITY VC

Sep 2018

$100m

SERIES B

Total funding: $904.5m

Company HQ

Carnaby, London, UK

Leadership

Rishi Khosla

(Co-Founder & CEO)

Previously co-founded Copal, a financial research firm which they scaled to 3,000 employees and sold to Moody’s Corporation in 2014.

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