The Key Support Services

Senior Systems & Data Engineer

The Key Support Services  •  £60k - £70k/yr  •  United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Remote)  •  12 days ago
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Job Description

Location: Remote, UK

Salary: £60,000 to £70,000 per year

Job Purpose

The Senior Systems Engineer is a lead technical contributor responsible for the development, scaling, and architectural integrity of the Group’s commercial systems and data infrastructure. Working in lockstep with the Technical Lead and our Salesforce Specialists, you will own the technical execution of our Salesforce CPQ roadmap and the evolution of our proprietary Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

This is a "builder-heavy" role. You will bridge the gap between complex commercial logic in Salesforce and our in-house micro-services and databases, ensuring that data flows reliably, securely, and instantaneously across a rapidly scaling global business.

Key Facts

  • CPQ Technical Lead You are the expert for the technical build and logic of our Salesforce CPQ implementation, turning complex pricing models into automated reality.
  • ESB Stewardship Our home-built Enterprise Service Bus is a strategic asset. You will lead its expansion as we onboard new systems through organic growth and M&A.
  • Proprietary Engine We don’t just buy tools; we build them. You will lead the development of in-house micro-services and databases to handle our unique business workflows.
  • AI-Native Infrastructure You will design the MCP connectors and integration layers that allow AI agents to "talk" to our core systems safely.

Role Responsibilities

Integration Architecture & ESB Evolution

  • Drive the ESB Roadmap: Lead the technical direction of our home-built Enterprise Service Bus, ensuring it remains resilient, scalable, and capable of handling high-concurrency event-driven workloads.
  • Advanced Integration Patterns: Design and implement sophisticated integration patterns (webhooks, pub/sub, async messaging) between Salesforce, ERPs, and internal DBs.
  • Operational Excellence: Own the monitoring and reliability of our integration pipelines, implementing senior-level logging, alerting, and "self-healing" error handling to prevent data drift.

Salesforce & CPQ Development

  • Lead CPQ Execution: Technical ownership of the Salesforce CPQ build—translating commercial requirements into robust Apex, LWC, and configuration.
  • Collaborative Build: Work daily with Salesforce Specialists to ensure all developments align with platform health, naming conventions, and the wider CRM roadmap.
  • Performance Engineering: Optimize Salesforce-to-ESB data flows to ensure that complex quoting and pricing data move without latency or governor-limit issues.

Micro-Services & In-House Databases

  • System Design: Architect and build the micro-services (Python/Node) that power our proprietary business logic, reporting into the Technical Lead for architectural sign-off.
  • Database Engineering: Lead the design and maintenance of in-house relational databases, ensuring clean schema design, data integrity, and performance tuning for the Data team.
  • CI/CD Ownership: Manage the deployment lifecycle of these services, ensuring robust testing and version control are standard practice.

AI Tooling & MCP Development

  • System Exposure: Design and govern custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers that provide AI agents with secure, structured access to internal systems.
  • Agentic Workflows: Build the "connective tissue" that allows AI to perform autonomous actions (like data validation or quote drafting) across our stack.

Requirements

Essential

  • Senior Engineering Background: 5+ years experience in systems engineering or backend development.
  • Integration Expert: Deep experience with ESB patterns, message queuing (RabbitMQ/Kafka), and building/consuming complex REST APIs.
  • Salesforce CPQ Mastery: Technical proficiency in Salesforce (Apex/LWC) with specific, hands-on experience in CPQ logic.
  • Python/SQL Expert: Mastery of Python for micro-services and advanced SQL for database design and optimization.
  • Collaborative Pedigree: Experience working in a structured team reporting to a Technical Lead and partnering with platform specialists.

Desirable

  • AI Frameworks: Experience with MCP or building custom wrappers for LLMs (Claude/GPT).
  • Infrastructure: Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD automation.

Behaviours

  • Systems Thinker: You don't just fix a bug; you figure out why the architecture allowed it to happen and you fix the root cause.
  • High Agency: You take ownership of the "Quote-to-Cash" pipeline and don't wait for a nudge to improve it.
  • Collaborative Leader: You enjoy the "team sport" of engineering—sharing knowledge with juniors and syncing with specialists to ensure the whole ecosystem stays healthy.
  • Mentor Mentality: You enjoy elevating the junior members of the team through code reviews and architectural coaching.

Benefits

Why work for us

We place huge importance on caring for and developing our people. If you join us you can expect a good work-life balance and the training and support you need to succeed in your role and continue to progress. We are a socially conscious company, but one that also likes to have fun. We offer a generous holiday allowance, flexible hours, buying and selling holiday, enhanced maternity pay, free breakfast, fruit, and drinks, regular socials and much more.

The Key Support Services

About The Key Support Services

The pace of change in education means there is no shortage of theory, opinion and advice on what leaders need to do and what they need to know. Leaders themselves are under huge pressure to make a difference with little time to plan, prioritise and learn. In a world like this, ambitious and aspiring education leaders are in constant need of reliable, relevant and authoritative knowledge that’s ready to use.

The Key cuts through the noise to provide up-to-the-minute sector intelligence and resources that empower education leaders with the knowledge to act.

We draw upon a strong social purpose, deep expertise in education and a relentless desire to stay ahead of a vibrant and fast-changing landscape. Our community of members - more than 100,000 leaders of schools and multi-academy trusts from across the country - share our belief that true leadership is about putting theory into practice; that real change happens when leaders can take meaningful action.

Since our founding as a government pilot, we’ve grown into a can-do collective of experts, writers, researchers and technologists who are deeply committed to serving the needs and championing the perspective of education leaders across the country. Our vision is to be an indispensable partner to education leaders determined to make a difference.

Industry
Education & Training
Company Size
51-200 employees
Headquarters
London, GB
Year Founded
2007
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