Senior Data Engineer at Burson in London, England, GB

Who we are:

Burson, part of WPP, is the global communications leader built to create value for clients through reputation. With highly specialized teams, industry-leading technologies and breakthrough creative, we help brands and businesses redefine reputation as a competitive advantage so they can lead today and into the future. When you work at Burson, you are part of a global community of lifelong learners who thrive at the edge of innovation.

WPP (LSE/NYSE: WPP) is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information, visit WPP.com

For more information visit bursonglobal.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

More about the role:

Burson’s Intelligence & Insights capability builds the data infrastructure, pipelines and AI-enabled workflows that power communications measurement and impact reporting at scale. Reporting directly to JT Joseph within the Intelligence & Insights practice and based in London, UK (Hybrid working policy), this role is central to leading the technical development of Fount, Burson’s flagship communications intelligence platform.

In this role, you will be responsible for translating product vision and technical specifications into robust, scalable data engineering and business intelligence solutions. Working closely with product leadership, you will contribute technical insights and architectural recommendations that help shape the platform's future evolution. You will operate within a structured Agile team managed in Jira, where product vision, priorities and roadmaps are set by Product Owners, while your core focus is executing this vision to the highest engineering standards.

You will serve as the lead engineer responsible for building, maintaining and enhancing Fount, Burson’s custom data pipeline and database layer for communications reporting. Fount enables analysts to configure client monitoring subscriptions, Boolean searches, data ingestion and AI enrichment through an analyst-facing configuration layer. Under the direction of product leadership, you will execute technical deliverables that make the platform more reliable, scalable and seamless for non-technical users to configure and operate.

This is a senior individual-contributor role with technical leadership and mentoring responsibility, rather than a formal people-management position. You will directly mentor a junior engineer while providing technical peer support and alignment across the wider engineering team. The position combines strategic engineering with hands-on delivery across major pillars:

• Technical Leadership & Architecture (e.g., pipeline design, engineering standards, technical reviews, technical debt refactoring, mentoring)
• Fount Platform & Data Engineering (e.g., ETL/ELT pipelines, Python services, SQL layers, API integrations, cloud infrastructure, cost & performance optimization)
• Analyst Enablement & AI Integrations (e.g., NocoDB configuration, Boolean ingestion, LLM enrichment frameworks, MCP & provider-hosted integrations)

What you'll do:

• Lead the technical design, architectural standards, and delivery of business-critical data pipelines, services, and platform components across media monitoring and communications data sources.
• Partner closely with Product Owners in an Agile Jira environment to assess technical feasibility, evaluate trade-offs, and translate product requirements into maintainable, scalable technical solutions.
• Build and maintain production-ready Python services, SQL transformation layers, star-schema data models, and API integrations across relational databases and cloud storage (Azure Data Lake).
• Optimise pipeline performance, system reliability, compute efficiency, and AI token costs, while establishing robust monitoring, logging, alerting, and incident-response practices.
• Enhance Fount’s analyst-facing configuration layer (Boolean searches, API ingestion rules, NocoDB workflows) to streamline analyst setup and reduce routine engineering intervention.
• Operationalise AI-enabled enrichment frameworks (classification, summarisation, sentiment, topic detection, LLMs, MCP-enabled integrations) with strict quality assurance, governance, and cost controls.
• Deliver custom data engineering solutions for specialized client requirements, integrating internal, API-driven, and third-party research datasets into scalable reporting workflows.
• Mentor junior engineers through code reviews, pairing, architectural guidance, and knowledge-sharing, while systematically refactoring technical debt and maintaining operational runbooks.

Experience that contributes to success:

• Substantial experience designing, building, and operating production data platforms, star-schema data models, and complex ELT/ETL pipelines.
• Advanced proficiency in Python and SQL, including clean object-oriented design, Pandas, query optimization, and REST API integrations.
• Hands-on experience within the Microsoft Azure ecosystem (Azure Data Factory, Azure SQL, ADLS), Azure DevOps, Git, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing.
• Proven track record in system reliability engineering, production troubleshooting, logging/monitoring, and performance optimization.
• Demonstrated capability mentoring junior engineers and elevating team capabilities through code reviews, technical standards, and documentation.
• Agile execution expertise using Jira, partnering closely with Product Owners to evaluate technical trade-offs and manage competing roadmap priorities.
• Familiarity with modern AI & integration frameworks, including LLM enrichment workflows, semi-structured formats (e.g., Parquet), NoSQL, and provider-hosted or MCP-enabled integrations.
• Exposure to complementary technologies, such as low-code UI tools (NocoDB/Airtable), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/Terragrunt), Power BI/DAX, or communications measurement data.

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You belong at Burson:

Our vision is for Burson to be the leading ‘academy company’ for creative communications professionals and emerging leaders. We provide a dynamic environment where ambitious colleagues come to elevate their skills, expand their networks, and ultimately, produce the best solutions for today’s leading brands. Our commitment to your growth is reflected in our robust benefits and people programs, which include professional development opportunities, mentorship programs with industry leaders, a vibrant and inclusive company culture fostering collaboration and innovation and packages designed to reward and retain top talent. We invest in our people because we believe their success is our success.

At Burson, we’re an agency of learn-it-alls. We recognize that the things we do best, creativity and communications, require a level of nuanced understanding. That’s why it’s imperative for us to hire extraordinarily talented people of all backgrounds and identities. Without that we can’t do the essential work of inspiring bold ideas, fostering constructive dialogue, cultivating meaningful experiences, and driving innovation and creativity for our partners. Your unique point of view—your talent—is what makes you a #BursonPerson, and it’s how we deliver exceptional results for our clients, together.

We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

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