Senior Data Engineer, Prolific
High-quality human-powered data at scale
Open for applications
High-quality human-powered data at scale
201-500 employees
Open for applications
201-500 employees
Company mission
To accelerate human understanding.
Role
Who you are
- Technical Expertise: 3+ years building and shipping production grade data systems, with strong SQL skills and proficiency in Python or another object-oriented language (Java, Scala etc.)
- Familiarity with cloud-native infrastructure - ideally some exposure to Terraform, Kubernetes, or similar IaC and container orchestration tools. We don't expect deep expertise in all of these, but comfort working in this kind of environment matters
- Experience designing data APIs or services that expose data to applications, or a strong interest in working across the analytical/operational boundary
- A thoughtful approach to data quality, privacy, and security - you understand that how data is used is as important as how it's moved
- Strong collaboration skills and comfort working across teams with different priorities — engineers, data scientists, AI engineers, product
- A pragmatic, curious mindset - you enjoy keeping up with the field and know when to reach for a new tool versus when to stick with what works
- Pipeline Management: Hands on experience with data pipeline tools (Airflow, dbt) and strong ability to optimise for performance and reliability
- Quality Focus: Commitment to continuously improving product quality, security, and performance through rigorous testing and code reviews
- Documentation: Meticulous approach to creating and maintaining architecture and systems documentation
- Collaborative Mindset: Ability to work across teams to understand and address diverse data needs while maintaining data integrity
- Growth Orientation: Desire to continually keep up with advancements in data engineering practices and technologies
- Problem-Solving: Exceptional analytical skills to troubleshoot complex data issues and implement effective solutions
- Independence: Capability to ship medium features independently while contributing to the team's overall objectives
What the job involves
- We're looking for a Senior Data Engineer to help build scalable data solutions that serve teams across the business – from data scientists and analysts to AI engineers and product teams. You'll contribute to both the underlying platform and the way data is used in our products, working in a modern, cloud native environment where privacy, security, and good data practices are part of how we build
- Build and maintain data pipelines that power analytics, ML workloads, and product-facing applications - from internal databases, SaaS sources, and streaming systems through to the teams and services that consume them
- Evolve our data platform alongside cloud platform engineers, using infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) and Kubernetes-based deployments (Argo) to keep the platform scalable, reliable, and self-serve
- System Architecture: Design and implement scalable data infrastructure that accommodates our growing data volume and complexity
- Develop data services and APIs that expose trusted data to product applications, bridging analytical and operational systems
- Own data quality and observability, putting monitoring, testing, and alerting in place so issues are caught early and trust in the data stays high
- Partner with AI engineers, data scientists, analysts, and product teams to understand their data needs and design the right solutions – not just the quickest ones
- Uphold strong data privacy, security, and compliance practices in everything you build, particularly where data flows into product-facing contexts
- Technical Documentation: Create and maintain comprehensive documentation of data flows, models, and systems for knowledge sharing
- Security and Compliance: Ensure all data systems adhere to security best practices and compliance requirements
Our take
Founded in 2014, Prolific is a marketplace and data analysis company that provides researchers with a network of test participants. From eye-tracking to human-facing AI applications, Prolific’s network acts as both a recruiter for test participants and as a marketplace for researchers scientists to hire said participants.
Founded in 2014, it’s already used by the likes of Google, Stanford, Oxford and Kings College London Universities to test new AI products, providing “stress tests” for its clients. Prolific’s user base now counts over 2000 potential test subjects, whilst researchers leverage its network to launch surveys, tests and evaluation tasks every 2 minutes.
An indicator of Prolific’s success is maintaining of profitability for years after its initial Y Combinator investment. In 2024, it raised $32 million in Series A to maintain its healthy position. This funding will allow it to expand its operations.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Glassdoor (4.2)
Company
Funding (1 round)
Jul 2023
$33.7m
Series A
Total funding: $33.7m
Company benefits
- Bank holiday swaps
- Enhanced sick pay
- L&D budget – £1000 per year
- 25 days annual leave + bank holidays
- Remote Work ( Within UK or US)
Company values
- We win together
- We care deeply about our customers
- We make every minute count
- We're optimistic and find a way
- We embrace change
- We aim high
Company HQ
Kings Cross, London, UK
Leadership
Phelim Bradley
(Co-Founder & CEO)Currently also Venture Partner at Pioneer Fund. Previously Dphil at Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Bioinformatics Intern at Illumina and MPhil of Computer Biology at University of Cambridge.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Prolific
- At Prolific, we want all of our employees, researchers, and participants to be included and so we commit to having ongoing discussions about diversity and inclusion and regularly look at areas where we can improve. This policy aims to: - treat all our employees fairly and respectfully, regardless of their job status, location, or work hours ⏰ - avoid any illegal discrimination based on age, disability, gender, gender identity, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, and traveler status. These are protected by the UK Equality Act (2010), Ireland Employment Equality Act (2004), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) at the federal level and the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL) at the state level. ⚖️ - refuse to tolerate any kind of illegal discrimination 🙅🏻♀️. This includes pay and benefits, work conditions, grievance and discipline handling, termination, redundancy, parental leave, flexible working requests, employment selection, promotion, training, and other opportunities for development.
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