Principal Data Engineer
This is the SFIA description for the Principal Engineer position.
Responsibilities
Summary as follows:
| Responsibility | Level |
|---|---|
| Autonomy | 5 |
| Influence | 5 |
| Complexity | 5 |
| Business skills | 5 |
| Knowledge | 5 |
Autonomy
- Works under broad direction. Work is often self-initiated. Is fully responsible for meeting allocated technical and/or group objectives. Analyses, designs, plans, executes and evaluates work to time, cost and quality targets. Establishes milestones and has a significant role in the assignment of tasks and/or responsibilities.
Influence
- Influences organisation, customers, suppliers, partners and peers on the contribution of own specialism. Makes decisions which impact the success of assigned work, i.e. results, deadlines and budget. Has significant influence over the allocation and management of resources appropriate to given assignments. Leads on user/customer and group collaboration throughout all stages of work. Ensures users’ needs are met consistently through each work stage. Builds appropriate and effective business relationships across the organisation and with customers, suppliers and partners. Creates and supports collaborative ways of working across group/area of responsibility. Facilitates collaboration between stakeholders who have diverse objectives.
Complexity
- Implements and executes policies aligned to strategic plans. Performs an extensive range and variety of complex technical and/or professional work activities. Undertakes work which requires the application of fundamental principles in a wide and often unpredictable range of contexts. Engages and coordinates with subject matter experts to resolve complex issues as they relate to customer/organisational requirements. Understands the relationships between own specialism and customer/organisational requirements.
Business skills
- Demonstrates leadership in operational management.
- Analyses requirements and advises on scope and options for continual operational improvement.
- Assesses and evaluates risk.
- Takes all requirements into account when making proposals.
- Shares own knowledge and experience and encourages learning and growth.
- Advises on available standards, methods, tools, applications and processes relevant to group specialism(s) and can make appropriate choices from alternatives.
- Understands and evaluates the organisational impact of new technologies and digital services.
- Creatively applies innovative thinking and design practices in identifying solutions that will deliver value for the benefit of the customer/stakeholder.
- Clearly demonstrates impactful communication skills (oral, written and presentation) in both formal and informal settings, articulating complex ideas to broad audiences.
- Learning and professional development — takes initiative to advance own skills and identify and manage development opportunities in area of responsibility.
- Security, privacy and ethics — proactively contributes to the implementation of appropriate working practices and culture.
Knowledge
- Is fully familiar with recognised industry bodies of knowledge both generic and specific, and knowledge of the business, suppliers, partners, competitors and clients. Develops a wider breadth of knowledge across the industry or business. Applies knowledge to help to define the standards which others will apply.
Skills
Core
Summary as follows:
| Skill | Code | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Data engineering | DENG | 5 |
| Programming/software development | PROG | 5 |
| Testing | TEST | 5 |
| Release and deployment | RELM | 5 |
| IT infrastructure | ITOP | 5 |
Data engineering
- Plans and drives the development of data engineering solutions ensuring that solutions balance functional and non-functional requirements.
- Monitors application of data standards and architectures including security and compliance.
- Contributes to organisational policies, standards, and guidelines for data engineering.
Programming/software development
- Takes technical responsibility across all stages and iterations of software development.
- Plans and drives software construction activities. Adopts and adapts appropriate software development methods, tools and techniques.
- Measures and monitors applications of project/team standards for software construction, including software security.
- Contributes to the development of organisational policies, standards, and guidelines for software development.
Testing
- Plans and drives testing activities across all stages and iterations of product, systems and service development.
- Provides authoritative advice and guidance on any aspect of test planning and execution. Adopts and adapts appropriate testing methods, automated tools and techniques to solve problems in tools and testing approaches.
- Measures and monitors applications of standards for testing. Assesses risks and takes preventative action.
- Identifies improvements and contributes to the development of organisational policies, standards, and guidelines for testing.
Release and deployment
- Leads the assessment, analysis, planning and design of release packages, including assessment of risk.
- Liaises with business and technology teams on release scheduling and communication of progress. Conducts post-release reviews.
- Ensures that release processes and procedures are applied and that releases can be rolled back as needed.
- Identifies, evaluates and manages the adoption of appropriate release and deployment techniques, processes and automation tools.
IT infrastructure
- Provides technical leadership to optimise the performance of IT infrastructure.
- Investigates and manages the adoption of tools, techniques and processes (including automation) for the management of systems and services.
- Oversees the planning, installation, maintenance and acceptance of new and updated infrastructure components and infrastructure-based services. Aligns to service expectations, security requirements and other quality standards.
- Ensures that operational procedures and documentation are fit for purpose and kept up to date. Ensures that operational issues are identified, recorded, monitored and resolved. Provides appropriate status and other reports to specialists, users and managers.
Data Maturity
Summary as follows:
| Skill | Code | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Data science | DATS | 5 |
| Business intelligence | BINT | 5 |
| Machine learning | MLNG | 5 |
Data science
- Plans and drives all stages of the development of data science and analytics solutions.
- Provides expert advice to evaluate the problems to be solved and the need for data science solutions. Identifies what data sources to use or acquire.
- Specifies and applies appropriate data science techniques and specialised programming languages.
- Reviews the benefits and value of data science techniques and tools and recommends improvements. Contributes to developing policy, standards and guidelines for developing, evaluating, monitoring and deploying data science solutions.
Business intelligence
- Plans and manages business intelligence activities.
- Ensures that business intelligence processes are robust, efficient and fit for purpose, focusing on automation, key controls and data quality. Advises on the available standards, procedures, methods, tools and techniques.
- Manages reviews of the benefits and value of business intelligence techniques and tools and recommends improvements.
- Contributes to the development of analytics policy, standards and guidelines.
Machine learning
- Designs, implements, tests and improves machine learning architectures and systems.
- Selects techniques based on a breadth of knowledge of the strengths, weaknesses and expected performance of different approaches.
- Establishes good practice in the development, evaluation, monitoring and deployment of machine learning systems.
Engineering Maturity
| Skill | Code | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Systems and software life cycle engineering | SLEN | 5 |
| Systems integration and build | SINT | 5 |
| Database design | DBDS | 5 |
| Acceptance testing | BPTS | 5 |
Systems and software life cycle engineering
- Elicits requirements for systems and software life cycle working practices and automation.
- Prepares design options for the working environment of methods, procedures, techniques, tools, and people.
- Selects systems and software life cycle working practices for software components and micro-services.
- Deploys automation to achieve well-engineered and secure outcomes.
Systems integration and build
- Collaborates with those responsible for ongoing systems and software life cycle management to select, adopt and adapt working practices.
- Supports deployment of the working environment for systems and software life cycle working practices.
- Provides effective feedback to encourage development of the individuals and teams responsible for systems and software life cycle working practices. Provides guidance and makes suggestions to support continual improvement and learning approach.
- Contributes to identifying new domains within the organisation where systems and software life cycle working practices can be deployed.
Database design
- Provides specialist expertise in the design characteristics of database management systems or data warehouse products/services.
- Provides expert guidance in the selection, provision and use of database and data warehouse architectures, software and facilities.
- Ensures that physical database design policy supports transactional data requirements for performance and availability.
- Ensures that data warehouse design policy supports demands for business intelligence and data analytics.
Acceptance testing
- Plans and manages acceptance testing activity.
- Specifies the acceptance testing environment for systems, products, business processes and services. Manages the creation of acceptance test cases and scenarios. Ensures that defined tests reflect realistic operational conditions and required level of coverage.
- Ensure tests and results are documented, analysed and reported to stakeholders, and required actions taken. Highlights issues and risks identified during testing to stakeholders.
- Provides authoritative advice and guidance on planning and execution of acceptance tests.