Lead QA Engineer - Performance

Aker Systems

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations.  We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track.  The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.  We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply.  We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you don’t hold SC clearance, we will support you to apply assuming you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 5 years. Due to the nature of the project it is also required you hold a British Citizenship or Dual Citizenship. As a Lead Data Analyst working within our fast-paced client environments, you will lead the business, data and systems analysis activities for products and services, becoming a domain expert in your area.  Working within Agile technical delivery teams, the role requires a combination of data analysis and technical analysis. The role will involve: * Leading the data and systems analysis activities within the project, identifying the business and technical requirements and acceptance criteria * Conducting data analysis activities to identify detailed requirements including business transformation mappings * Creating technical User Stories, including task breakdown and be able to explain them to the technical delivery team * Working with the Solution Architect to develop and document detailed User Stories for the project backlog – you will need to validate that the solution will meet the end user requirements * Working with the data consumers and internal teams to create data specifications including detailed data definitions & mappings * Taking the lead on running workshops and data supplier engagement * Formalising the results of data and systems analysis into structured documentation and obtain approval from the key stakeholders * Forming strong business relationships with suppliers and consumers of data * Building out patterns and processes that can be repeated * Managing the project backlog in Jira * Being part of the technical Agile scrum team – actively contributing to other activities including testing and validation of the end results Core Competencies * The successful candidate will have a Bachelor's degree or greater, ideally in Computer Science or a related field * The successful candidate will at least 5 years experience within a similar role - Technical Analyst or Data Analyst * Experience of working in an Agile delivery team * You will have demonstrated the following competencies to the proficiency level appropriate to the seniority of the role: * Experience communicating to a varied range of stakeholders across both technology and the business, building strong relationships * Skilled in collecting and interpreting data, analysing results to identify patterns and trends in structured and unstructured data sets, RDBMS and Dimensional Data Models * Manipulation, analysis and interpretation of complex data sets using SQL and analytical functions * Experience of working with data orientated requirements, including a good understanding of data modelling, mapping and workflow * Able to apply suitable analytical approaches to requirements discovery, documentation and solution delivery * Experience running requirements workshops to elicit User Stories, Workflow Diagrams, etc * Previous experience working in a technical capacity, as either a Systems Analyst or an MI/BI background would be advantageous * Previous experience working within a data team on complex integration problems using public Cloud and messaging or streaming technology Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more. Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.

Aker Systems

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations.  We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track.  The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.  We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply.  We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. We are seeking an experienced and hands-on Lead Data Engineer to design, build and evolve secure, scalable data platforms for clients across the UK Public Sector and Utilities sectors. You will work closely with architects, engineers and client stakeholders to deliver modern cloud-based data solutions that support operational, analytical and AI-driven use cases. The role combines technical leadership with hands-on engineering, helping clients modernise their data estates while ensuring solutions are secure, reliable and scalable. Working across multiple projects, you will lead the development of batch and real-time data pipelines, support architectural decision-making, and help establish engineering best practices across delivery teams. Strong experience with real-time streaming technologies is essential. Key Responsibilities * Lead the design, development and deployment of secure, scalable data pipelines and data platform components. * Design and implement batch and real-time streaming solutions using modern event-driven architectures. * Own technical design decisions across projects, balancing scalability, security, performance and delivery requirements. * Lead technical workshops, discovery sessions and architecture discussions with client stakeholders. * Assess existing client data platforms and design practical approaches for modernisation, migration and integration. * Build and maintain data ingestion, transformation and integration capabilities across a variety of data sources. * Develop cloud-native data platforms using AWS services and open-source technologies. * Ensure data quality, governance, lineage and security requirements are embedded throughout the data lifecycle. * Drive engineering best practices including code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code. * Support multiple client engagements, helping delivery teams maintain consistent engineering quality and standards. * Mentor and support engineers across project teams, providing technical guidance and leadership. * Perform data modelling, performance tuning and root cause analysis to resolve complex data and platform issues. Essential Skills & Experience Real-Time Streaming & Data Engineering * Strong commercial experience designing and implementing real-time streaming data platforms. * Hands-on experience with technologies such as Apache Kafka, AWS Kinesis, Apache Flink, Spark Streaming, Apache Pulsar, or similar event-driven technologies. * Experience building high-volume, low-latency, resilient data pipelines in production environments. * Strong understanding of modern data engineering patterns, including batch, streaming and hybrid architectures. Data Engineering & Databases * Extensive experience developing and operating enterprise-scale data platforms. * Strong SQL skills and experience designing data models for analytical and operational workloads. * Proficiency in Python or other modern programming languages used for data engineering. * Experience configuring, tuning and optimising relational and NoSQL databases. Cloud & Software Engineering * Strong experience working with AWS cloud services, including EC2, RDS, Lambda, Athena, Glue, S3 and IAM. * Experience working within Agile delivery environments. * Strong understanding of Test-Driven Development (TDD) and automated testing practices. * Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and engineering automation. * Strong understanding of Infrastructure as Code principles. * Experience using version control systems such as Git. Regulated Environments * Experience delivering technology solutions within UK Public Sector, Utilities, Energy, Water, Financial Services or other highly regulated industries. * Understanding of security, governance and compliance considerations within regulated environments. Desirable Skills * Experience with Terraform. * Experience with Docker and Kubernetes. * Knowledge of Ansible and Packer. * Linux and Windows administration experience. * Experience supporting AI, machine learning or advanced analytics platforms. * Experience working on programmes requiring UK Government security clearance. What We're Looking For * Strong technical leadership and problem-solving skills. * Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. * Experience working in complex, regulated environments. * A collaborative approach and willingness to support and mentor others. * A focus on delivering practical solutions that create value for clients. * A passion for building reliable, scalable and secure data platforms. Education Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Mathematics or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience. Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more. Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.

Aker Systems

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations.  We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track.  The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.  We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply.  We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you don’t hold SC clearance, we will support you to apply assuming you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 5 years. As a Software Engineer, you will help lead the development of backend services for a government client leveraging the latest commercial and open-source technologies. This involves designing, developing, documenting and deploying backend services with a focus on high availability, low latency and scalability.  * Design, develop, document and deploy new or enhanced features to our backend services that meet functional / non-functional business requirements  * Actively participate in the team’s elaboration and estimation of user stories  * Build frequent, small releases to maintain the team’s momentum  * Collaborate closely with other engineers in our cross-functional feature teams; ensuring that others can cover for you, and that you can cover for them  * Build, optimise and operate our Continuous Deployment pipelines  * Maintain operational responsibility for the services that your team owns  CORE COMPETENCIES The successful candidate will have a Bachelor's degree or greater in Computer Science or a related field. An equivalent of at least 5 years of working experience in a developer capacity is also acceptable for this position.  You will have demonstrated the following competencies to the proficiency level appropriate to the seniority of the role; * JAVA programming experience as the core language, including Spring Boot. * Fluent in writing JAVA coding. * Experience with Kafka or a similar platform. * Experience with Scala and Spark. * Integrating with backing services, such as PostgreSQL, Redis or S3 * Good engineering practices including continuous delivery, clean code, documentation, defensive programming, automated testing and code reviews * Working in Agile development and/or DevOps teams * Using GitHub/GitLab for source control * Test Driven Development with appropriate tools and frameworks * Experience in Big Data technologies * Experience in Public Cloud services, such as AWS Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more. Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.