Senior Data Migration Engineer (Retail)

We are seeking an experienced Senior Data Migration Engineer to join the data engineering team of a fast-growing UK retailer . This is an exciting opportunity for a hands‑on Data Engineer with strong experience across data migration, data integration, ETL/ELT and modern data platforms to play a key role in the continued development and modernisation of the organisation's data estate.

This is an Outside IR35 contract opportunity and will suit an experienced Data Engineer who enjoys working on complex data challenges, taking ownership of technical solutions and delivering high‑quality, production‑ready data engineering capabilities.

The successful candidate will have significant experience delivering data migration and data transformation projects , working across legacy and modern data platforms and dealing with complex, high‑volume datasets. You will be responsible for designing and building scalable data migration, ingestion, transformation and integration pipelines, ensuring data is migrated accurately, efficiently and with minimal disruption to business operations.

You will work across the full data migration lifecycle, from initial discovery and source‑system assessment through to data profiling, mapping, extraction, transformation, loading, validation, reconciliation, testing, deployment and post‑migration support. You will be expected to understand complex source systems and data structures and translate these into robust target data models and pipelines.

A key part of the role will be developing source‑to‑target mappings and transformation logic , identifying data quality issues and implementing appropriate cleansing, standardisation and validation processes. You will design robust reconciliation and quality controls to ensure migrated data is complete, accurate and fit for purpose, while investigating and resolving discrepancies and migration issues where required.

You will also contribute to wider data platform modernisation initiatives , including migrations between databases, data warehouses, cloud platforms and other data technologies. Experience with legacy‑to‑cloud migration, data warehouse migration, lake or lakehouse migration and large‑scale application or customer data migration would be particularly valuable.

The role requires strong hands‑on engineering skills, using SQL to develop scalable data pipelines and transformation processes. You should be comfortable working with large datasets, complex SQL, data modelling and distributed data processing, as well as investigating performance and data quality issues.

Experience with modern cloud data platforms across AWS, Azure and/or GCP is expected. Experience with technologies such as Databricks, Apache Spark, PySpark, Airflow, dbt, Kafka, Git/GitHub, CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code would be beneficial. Experience with Databricks, Spark or Hadoop‑style data processing environments is particularly useful, although strong transferable experience across other modern data platforms will also be considered.

You will work within a modern engineering environment using established software engineering practices, including version control, automated testing, CI/CD, release management and production support. You will be expected to develop maintainable, well‑tested and production‑ready solutions, while contributing to technical design and helping to identify opportunities to improve the wider data engineering estate.

The successful candidate will be comfortable working independently and taking ownership of complex technical problems. You will work closely with Data Engineers, Software Engineers, Architects, Product teams and business stakeholders to understand requirements, assess technical options and deliver pragmatic solutions. Strong communication skills are important, as you will need to explain complex data and migration issues clearly to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.

You will also be responsible for producing clear technical documentation covering data flows, source‑to‑target mappings, transformation logic, migration processes, dependencies, technical designs and operational procedures. You should have a proactive approach to problem solving and be comfortable investigating issues through to root cause rather than relying on short‑term fixes.

Previous experience within retail, e‑commerce or other high‑volume customer environments would be advantageous. Experience working with customer, transactional, CRM, digital or commercial data would be useful, particularly where you have worked across multiple source systems or complex enterprise data environments. However, the primary focus of the role is strong Data Engineering and Data Migration experience , and candidates from other sectors with relevant experience will be considered.

You will join an established data engineering team within a fast‑growing retail organisation , working on strategic data engineering, migration and platform modernisation initiatives. This is a hands‑on individual contributor role with no people management responsibility , giving you the opportunity to take ownership of significant technical challenges and make a direct contribution to the evolution of the company's data estate.

The ideal candidate will be an experienced Senior Data Engineer with a strong background in data migration, ETL/ELT, data integration and data quality , combined with excellent Python and SQL skills and experience working with modern cloud data platforms. If you enjoy solving complex data problems, working across different technologies and delivering large‑scale migration and transformation projects, this Outside IR35 opportunity offers the chance to work on a significant data engineering programme within a rapidly growing retailer.