THE COMPANY
The Irish Times Group is Ireland's leading independent quality news and information publishing organisation. The core activity of The Irish Times Group has evolved from six-day print publishing to a seven-day multi-platform news publisher with a market-leading position in the development of subscriptions. We focus on producing quality journalism and information for our users under the principles of The Irish Times. As well as our B2C subscriptions business we provide (B2B) media solutions for customers as we continue to grow and evolve in a fast-paced changing media landscape.
Data-driven news publishers are transforming from content-centric to audience-centric organizations, using data engineering to turn raw content and user behaviour into actionable insights. Data engineers in this sector build pipelines to manage, clean, and analyse high-volume data, transforming data-repositories into data-assets enabling personalized content, subscription growth, and targeted advertising.
THE ROLE
The Senior Data Engineer is responsible for prioritising, co-ordinating, scheduling and implementing solutions in line with business needs, collaborating with members of the Data Architecture and Machine Learning function as well as with the Analytics and Insight function, Software Engineering function and the general business.
The Senior Data Engineer will design and support the implementation of data solutions and platforms for automatic or semi-automatic data ingestion, transformation and enrichment, elevating pre-production data-driven applications (e.g. AI/ML solutions, Advanced Analytics, Reports, Dashboards and Analysis prototypes) to production-ready capabilities for the business.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
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Design and support the implementation of data storage and processing capabilities for mixed and non-mixed data-types (e.g.: text, audio, video, etc.).
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Automate data ingestion and transformation for follow-on analysis, reporting and dashboarding.
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Design and support the implementation of standardised assets for data quality and processing monitoring.
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Assemble, rationalise and organise large, complex data to satisfy business requirements.
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Organise existing and future data repositories to become easy-to-access and easy-to-understand self-service environments, implementing landing zones, transformation zones, consumptions zones and overall Role Based Access Controls (RBACs) to mitigate (and eliminate where possible) security risks.
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Work with data and analytics experts to improve functionality of solutions.
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Support data migration efforts as per business requirements
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Support procurement processes assessing relevant aspects of technology products, including detailed evaluation of data processing, data storage and scalability of products.
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Develop standards in the area of Data Engineering defining data-processing, data-transformation and data-modelling documentation while fostering and promoting best-practices to guarantee compliance, scalability and security of solutions.
SKILLS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
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Honours degree in Computer Science, Engineering or closely related disciplines.
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5 years' experience working in a Data Engineering role.
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2 years' experience in a technical management/leadership role.
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At least 2 years' experience working in DevOps or Agile environment.
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In-depth knowledge and hands-on experience with cloud-based Big Data solutions (e.g.: AWS, GCP, Azure).
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Hands-on experience in building and optimizing data pipelines (e.g. ETL) and data products across structured and unstructured data with technologies including but not limited to SQL, Spark, Python, NiFi, Scripting.
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In-depth knowledge and experience in programming (including but not limited to Object-Oriented Programming, RESTful frameworks, Python)
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Proven experience in Data Management and Data Migration.
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Proven experience in root cause analysis on data processes to identify opportunities for improvements.
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Sound knowledge of IT Security best practices.
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Good knowledge of industry trends and emerging technologies
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Vendor management experience
Desirable
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Data/Engineering based Masters or PhD.
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5 years' experience working in a Data Engineering role.
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In-depth knowledge and hands-on experience with Snowflake.
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Hands-on experience of message queuing and stream processing including but not limited to Solr, Kafka, Spark.
Personal Specifications:
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Strategic thinking and problem-solving.
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Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
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Strong analytical and organizational abilities.
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Ability to translate business needs into technical solutions.
The Irish Times Group operate a Hybrid working policy.
Our benefits include, Health Insurance contribution, Pension Contribution, Sick Leave Cover, Maternity and Paternity Leave, Irish Times & Irish Examiner Premium Digital Subscription, Income Protection Policy, Corporate Gym Membership discounts, Free Digital GP and Life Assurance Policy.
