National AI Awards 2025Discover AI's trailblazers! Join us to celebrate innovation and nominate industry leaders.

Nominate & Attend

Senior Engineer - Machine Learning/AI - Python and SQL

Sainsbury's
London
8 months ago
Applications closed

Related Jobs

View all jobs

Lead Data Scientist

Lead Data Scientist

Lead Data Scientist...

Senior Data Engineer

Senior Data Engineer

Senior Data Engineer - Azure - Leeds

Sainsbury's Tech - Senior Engineer Machine Learning - Hybrid Working - London based

Why join us
Joining Sainsbury's Tech as a Senior Engineer means becoming part of a leading technology organisation that powers the UK's top multi-channel, multi-brand retailer. We are a community of passionate engineers who are empowered to define and deliver through the use of technology. With a focus on continuous improvement and technical excellence, you'll have the opportunity to shape our engineering vision, drive adoption of best practises, and work with cutting-edge technologies. Not only will you contribute to innovative solutions that impact millions of customers, but you'll also be part of a progressive community that fosters growth, collaboration, and the advancement of engineering expertise. With the support and resources available, you can accelerate your professional development and enhance your skills within a dynamic, agile environment. Join us and be part of a team dedicated to making a meaningful impact within the retail industry while staying at the forefront of technological advancements.

What you'll do
As a Senior Machine Learning Data Engineer, you will play a critical role in designing, building, and maintaining data pipelines and infrastructure that enable the development and deployment of machine learning models and drive engineering excellence. You will collaborate closely with data scientists, and lead ML engineers, and software engineers to ensure data is clean, accessible, and optimised for large-scale processing and analysis.

Key Responsibilities

  • Data Pipeline Development: Lead the technical direction of projects and ensure the use of Sainsbury's best practices to the best quality.


  • Data Integration: Lead and provide expertise on Integrate data from various sources, ensuring data consistency, integrity, and quality across the entire data lifecycle.


  • Infrastructure Management: Provide guidance for the junior & Mid Data Engineers on the best practices when building and managing data infrastructure, including data lakes, warehouses, and distributed processing systems (e.g., Hadoop, Spark).


  • Data Preparation: Collaborate with data scientists to prepare and transform raw data into formats suitable for machine learning, including feature engineering and data augmentation.


  • Automation: Implement automation tools and frameworks (CI/CD) to streamline the deployment and monitoring of machine learning models in production.


  • Performance Optimisation: Optimise data processing workflows and storage solutions to improve performance and reduce costs.


  • Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams, including data science, engineering, and product management, to deliver data solutions that meet business needs.


  • Mentorship: junior and mid-level data engineers and provide technical guidance on best practices and emerging technologies in data engineering and machine learning and helping to enhance their skills and career growth.


  • Knowledge Sharing and Empowerment: Promote a culture of knowledge sharing within the engineering teams by organising regular technical workshops, brown bag sessions, and code reviews.


  • Innovation and Continuous Improvement: Foster a collaborative and inclusive team environment that encourages continuous learning and improvement.


Leadership and Communication

  • Strong leadership skills with the ability to inspire and guide team.


  • Lead scrum ceremonies as and when needed (Standup, Planning, and grooming sessions)


  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts.


  • Creating a safe and inclusive environment where all team members feel that their input is valued and are never dissuaded from speaking up or asking questions.


Collaborative Attitude

  • Strong team player with a collaborative approach to working with cross-functional teams within the Media Agency.


  • Open to feedback and willing to provide constructive criticism to others.


  • Be available for the team, responding within a reasonable time frame and if not possible clearly sign positing alternative contacts who can guide.


  • Building a community across Media Agency.


  • Contribute to a positive and inclusive atmosphere within the team.


Knowledge Sharing and Empowerment

  • Commitment to fostering a learning culture within the team and ensuring knowledge transfer across all levels.


  • Support and mentor C3s and C4s engineers by providing them opportunities to lead initiatives and contribute to the technical roadmap.


What you need to know and show

  • Education: Bachelor's degree in computer science, Data Engineering, or a related field. A Master's or PhD is preferred.


  • Experience: 5+ years of experience in data engineering, with a focus on building and managing data pipelines for machine learning applications.


Technical Skills

  • Strong programming skill in Python, Nodejs or Scala.


  • Expertise in SQL and NoSQL databases and Python (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Snowflake).
  • Strong experience with data processing frameworks (e.g., Apache Spark, Flink).


  • Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and their data services (e.g., Snowflake, S3, BigQuery, Redshift).


  • Knowledge of machine learning frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch) and model deployment tools (e.g., MLflow, TensorFlow Serving).


  • Experience with containerisation and orchestration tools (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).


  • Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git) and CI/CD pipelines.


We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you'll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there's always the chance to try something new - whether that's as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we'll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury's every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks' pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks' pay for paternity leave.

Please seewww.sainsburys.jobsfor a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).

2024-11-12 14:03:59

National AI Awards 2025

Subscribe to Future Tech Insights for the latest jobs & insights, direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of service.

Industry Insights

Discover insightful articles, industry insights, expert tips, and curated resources.

How to Find Hidden Machine Learning Jobs in the UK Using Professional Bodies like BCS, Turing Society & More

Machine learning (ML) continues to transform sectors across the UK—from fintech and retail to healthtech and autonomous systems. But while the demand for ML engineers, researchers, and applied scientists is growing, many of the best opportunities are never posted on traditional job boards. So, where do you find them? The answer lies in professional bodies, academic-industry networks, and tight-knit ML communities. In this guide, we’ll show you how to uncover hidden machine learning jobs in the UK by engaging with groups like the BCS (The Chartered Institute for IT), Turing Society, Alan Turing Institute, and others. We’ll explore how to use member directories, CPD events, SIGs (Special Interest Groups), and community projects to build connections, gain early access to job leads, and raise your professional profile in the ML ecosystem.

How to Get a Better Machine Learning Job After a Lay-Off or Redundancy

Redundancy in machine learning can feel especially frustrating when your role was technically advanced, strategically important, or AI-facing. But the UK still has strong demand for machine learning professionals across fintech, healthtech, retail, cybersecurity, autonomous systems, and generative AI. Whether you're a research-oriented ML engineer, production-focused MLOps developer, or applied scientist, this guide is designed to help you bounce back from redundancy and find a better opportunity that suits your goals.

Machine Learning Jobs Salary Calculator 2025: Figure Out Your True Worth in Seconds

Why last year’s pay survey is useless for UK ML professionals today Ask a Machine Learning Engineer wrangling transformer checkpoints, an MLOps Lead firefighting drift alarms, or a Research Scientist training diffusion models at 3 a.m.: “Am I earning what I deserve?” The honest answer changes monthly. A single OpenAI model drop doubles GPU demand, healthcare regulators release fresh explainability guidance, & a fintech unicorn pays six figures for vector‑search expertise. Each shock nudges salary bands. Any PDF salary guide printed in 2024 now looks like an outdated Jupyter notebook—missing the gen‑AI tsunami, the surge in edge inference, & the UK’s new Responsible‑AI framework. To give ML professionals an accurate benchmark, MachineLearningJobs.co.uk distilled a transparent, three‑factor formula that estimates a realistic 2025 salary in under a minute. Feed in your discipline, UK region, & seniority; you’ll receive a defensible figure—no stale averages, no guesswork. This article unpacks the formula, highlights the forces driving ML pay skyward, & offers five practical moves to boost your value inside the next ninety days.