Principal Engineer

We believe in better. And we make it happen.

Better content. Better products. And better careers.

Working in Tech, Product or Data at Sky is about building the next and the new. From broadband to broadcast, streaming to mobile, SkyQ to Sky Glass, we never stand still. We optimise and innovate.

We turn big ideas into the products, content and services millions of people love.

And we do it all right here at Sky.

What you'll do

Technical Mentorship: Act as the technical lead engineers working cross-functionally in an agile environment; act as a top-notch coder and expert in the domain, capable of deep diving into details of components and features, uplifting capability and shaping engineering maturity across the Domain.

Architecture Partnership: Define and guide the technical architecture for complex, high impact data products and platforms. Manage Solution Architects and act as the natural bridge between Data Engineering and Data Architecture as well as colleagues in wider Technology.

Standards Setting: Establish engineering patterns, coding standards, and best practices adopted across multiple squads.

Design & Innovation: Translate sophisticated business and technical requirements into scalable, cloud native data solutions. Able to create and build frameworks to support CI/CD pipelines and future capability; drive adoption of new tools, technologies, and engineering approaches that support a cloud-agnostic, AI-ready future

Assurance & Excellence: Embed rigorous validation, profiling, reconciliation, and automated testing into all engineering work; lead monitoring, observability, and performance optimisation to ensure resilient, reliable data products.

Strategic Influence: Partner with architects, product leaders, and senior stakeholders to shape roadmaps and platform direction. Work collaboratively with your Principal Engineer peers to ensure consistent and joined-up approaches to our biggest priorities and challenges. Communicating in both deeply technical and plain and simple terms.

What you'll bring

Technical Mastery: Deep expertise in cloud data engineering, distributed processing, and enterprise-scale data architecture. Excellent GCP/Python and/or Node JS 8+ knowledge, and CI/CD experience (ideally with Jenkins).

Advanced SQL: Master-level proficiency in SQL (ideally BigQuery ), with strong optimisation and performance-tuning skills. Experience following coding standards and performing peer code reviews.

Data Modelling & Insight: Strong capability in designing intuitive, scalable data models and semantic layers aligned to business meaning; skilled in advanced data profiling, anomaly detection, and statistical reasoning to ensure data integrity.

Collaboration: Able to influence senior stakeholders, simplify complex concepts, and build strong cross-functional relationships.

Technical Leadership: Expert in data quality frameworks, governance standards, and secure handling of sensitive data; connects engineering choices to long-term platform strategy, organisational goals, and future scalability.

Understanding: Uses deep business context within the specific Domain to shape proactive, value-driven engineering decisions; also equipped with first-class communication skills, able to grasp very complex data principles and processes, and decipher them in order to walk non-experts through them and gain support.

Team overview

Our vision is to enable Sky's growth ambitions though Data and AI: deepening customer relationships, optimising commercial performance, and enhancing operational efficiency.

Our Principal Engineers work within Domains and manage our Solution Architects. With top-notch skills, they act as our Technical Leads, setting and improving standards across the team and helping to raise the bar on what's possible. As a senior role, they're also our bridge into wider teams such as Architecture and Technology, ensuring we work together in harmony in pursuit of our data strategy.

Our Residential Products Domain is part of the Customer Directorate within Sky Data. It's where we build and maintain data products and data assets for Sky's Connectivity business - including Sky Broadband and Sky Mobile - as well as Sky TV and Sky Protect. We work within the Value Streams, as part of cross-functional teams driving exciting roadmaps; we also support broader work where we help to transform how things get done. That means we're at the heart of the action, supporting and working on the products that keep our customers connected and protected, and which directly drive their Sky experience. Whether we're helping to create magic on screen via the products people watch or using data and AI to improve how our business is set up behind the scenes, one thing's for sure - this is a winning team that collaborates across Sky to make a genuine difference.

The rewards

There's one thing people can't stop talking about when it comes to #LifeAtSky : the perks . Here's a taster:

Sky Q, for the TV you love all in one place

The magic of Sky Glass at an exclusive rate

A generous pension package

Private healthcare

Discounted mobile and broadband

A wide range of Sky VIP rewards and experiences

Inclusion & how you'll work

Recognised by The Times and Stonewall, we take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion. Investing in society, fighting