About Creditsafe

Creditsafe has been making business information accessible since 1997. Today we help companies of every size – from sole traders to the FTSE 100 – make smarter decisions about who to trust, who to sell to, and who to work with.

Our Data Cloud team is where that data is transformed into something the rest of the business and our customers can rely on.

We’re an equal opportunities employer and we mean it. If you need any adjustments to the interview process, tell us – we’ll sort it

Why this role

Creditsafe’s Data Cloud is a platform most people never see, but most businesses worldwide indirectly depend on: billions of records, tens of millions of daily updates, and the ability to manage customer portfolios through highly scalable APIs.

We’re hiring a Staff Data Architect to own the data architecture that cuts across multiple teams within Data Cloud. This includes areas such as our canonical entity model and resolution layer, lakehouse and transformation platform, and metadata, lineage and governance capabilities.

You'll set technical direction, raise engineering standards and remain hands-on enough that Senior Engineers seek your design reviews and guidance.

This is not a management role. It is the architecture leadership level on our Individual Contributor (IC) career framework, with the scope, influence and reward to match.

What you'll own

• A technical domain, not a single service. You'll own an end-to-end slice of Data Cloud including canonical entity modelling, identity resolution, temporal data design, semantic data layers, governance and data delivery.
• Architecture and strategy. Drive multi-quarter technical roadmaps, influencing what we build, retire and prioritise. Author key architectural RFCs and technical standards.
• Cross-team decision making. Partner with Engineering, Product and Data Science teams to make strategic technical decisions that impact multiple teams and platforms.
• Governance at scale. Own architecture considerations around entitlements, PII handling, masking, consent management, lineage and auditability.
• Engineering standards. Define and promote best practices for data modelling, API and data contracts, testing, operational excellence and data quality.
• Hands-on delivery. Build proofs of concept, reference architectures, foundational data models and reusable patterns that teams can build upon.
• Mentorship and technical leadership. Develop Senior Engineers and future Architects whilst coaching Engineering Managers on technical direction and architectural decision-making.

Experience and Skills

Must-haves

• Deep experience designing and operating large-scale production data platforms using Python and AWS, typically gained over 8+ years in engineering roles.
• Experience operating at Staff, Principal or Architect level, providing technical leadership across multiple teams.
• Strong expertise in data modelling, identity resolution and canonical entity design, including universal key matching and temporal ("time-travel") data architectures.
• Experience building and operating lakehouse and big-data platforms using technologies such as Apache Iceberg, Parquet, AWS Glue, EMR, PySpark, Athena and Redshift.
• Hands-on experience with modern cloud data platforms including Snowflake and/or Databricks.
• Strong understanding of data governance frameworks including data entitlements, PII handling, masking, consent management, lineage and auditability.
• Experience designing data products and APIs for external consumption, including semantic layers and data contracts.
• Demonstrable influence beyond your immediate team through architecture forums, RFCs, technical communities, shared frameworks and engineering standards.
• Excellent written communication skills with the ability to create high-quality architecture documentation, RFCs and post-incident reviews.

Nice to have

• Experience designing streaming and serverless data architectures with exactly-once processing guarantees.
• Commercial experience with Rust.
• Experience with Snowflake Marketplace, Databricks Marketplace or large-scale data sharing platforms.
• Experience building data platforms that support AI and Machine Learning workloads.
• Previous ownership of technical domains spanning multiple teams or large engineering organisations.
• Experience within financial services, credit risk, regulated data, KYC, UBO, company hierarchies or firmographic datasets.

How we work

• A genuine IC career ladder. Staff-level roles carry the influence, responsibility and compensation expected of senior technical leaders.
• Written design culture. Significant technical decisions are documented through RFCs and architectural reviews.
• End-to-end ownership. Teams own the services and platforms they build, including operational responsibility.
• Pragmatic agile. Teams choose the processes that help them deliver value efficiently and effectively.
• Technical leadership. Engineering leadership remains hands-on, approachable and supportive of informed technical decision-making.

Benefits

• Competitive Salary.
• Company Laptop supplied.
• Annual Bonus Scheme.
• 25 Days Annual Leave (plus bank holidays).
• Hybrid working model.
• Private Healthcare & Company Pension.
• Cycle to Work and Wellbeing Programme.
• Learning budget, conferences and professional development opportunities.
• Opportunities for industry contribution through open source projects, technical writing and speaking engagements.
• Global Company gatherings and events.
• Excellent career progression opportunities.
• Plus more that can be found on the benefits section of our Careers page: Creditsafe Careers

Equal Opportunities

Creditsafe is an equal opportunities employer that values diversity. Please contact Creditsafe if there is any support you need with your application.