Machine Learning Engineering Lead

We’re making zero carbon happen

We’re OVO Group, a big family of companies united by a single vision: to get to zero carbon, fast. 

We call this Plan Zero – and it shows how we’ll be fighting the climate crisis and transforming the way people use energy over the next decade. To do this, we need the sharpest minds. Are you up for the challenge?

Do great green things with OVO Energy

So much has changed since we launched in 2009.  Our goal remains the same though: make energy cheaper, greener, and simpler. Just as it was on day one.

Everyone belongs at OVO

Our aim is to build a diverse and inclusive movement: teams of brilliant people, with unique talents, skills, passions, and experiences. 

We encourage everyone to join us, whatever your gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, life experience, or background. So please come as you are – we can’t wait to meet you.

Where in the world of OVO will I be working?

As OVO moves closer to 5m customers, we are starting to reshape our data teams to enable our strategy to provide a world leading, carbon net zero, and digitally enabled experience. The data teams operate in a federated structure, with both central and embedded teams, to support our growing scale and ambition.

Reporting into the Head of Data Science for Retail, you will manage a team of data engineers developing innovative data products that deliver great business outcomes for our Retail teams. Your team will own the end to end development of data engineering pipelines, machine learning pipelines, critical business data APIs and data products on the whole. You’ll be responsible for engaging with different business teams to understand their data engineering needs and prioritising projects with your stakeholders. You’ll also support the development of your team through mentoring and achievable career progression plans.

What will I be doing?

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead and inspire a core Data Engineering team of specialists in data engineering, production engineering and machine learning engineering.
  
  
• Provide technical guidance, people management and ways of working improvements to the team.
  
  
• Get your hands dirty as required. You’re probably a coder and are likely to still help assist - certainly reviewing PRs and driving quality code.
  
  
• Engage with key stakeholders and senior leadership to set and define key metric objectives and identify areas where data engineering can deliver the highest impact.
  
  
• Take ownership of business objectives for your team. This includes (but is not limited to) initial scoping; appropriately managing the team’s time and level of support; and ensuring high quality work is delivered on time.
  
  
• Champion the value of data engineering and advise on appropriate use of data in the business. Work closely with the other data/tech teams to collaborate and demonstrate multi-functional expertise.
  
  
• Help define standard methodologies in data engineering and ensure they are followed. This includes documentation and reproducibility practices; assessing and implementing appropriate tooling; and platforms for data engineering collaboration.
  
  
• Have oversight over the quality of code and pipelines generated by the team. This includes ensuring productionised work is well monitored and maintained after release.
  
  
• Assess ways to improve and supplement the data we use by driving a respect for data quality that ensures the analysis can be robust.

Is this the job for me?

Essential skills and experience:

• Experience in leading a team, producing data solutions and actionable tools/pipelines for stakeholders.
  
  
• Proven ability to deliver high-quality data engineering projects end to end, translating into true commercial impact within a business.
  
  
• Theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience in advanced data engineering techniques. Excellent software engineering skills and production engineering experience, with commercial experience in one of the following: Python, R, Scala.
  
  
• Excellent presentation and communication skills - able to articulate results clearly and concisely to senior stakeholders. Ability to consult with, and sometimes challenge, teams of differing levels of data engineering knowledge.
  
• Skilled in building relationships and managing the priorities of multiple stakeholders.
  
  
• Experience managing data engineers embedded in cross functional product and technology teams.
  
  
• Ability to support career progression for a team, including choosing career paths and advising on development opportunities.
  
  
• Spot opportunities for data engineering, and support conversations regarding ‘buy or build your own’ decisions.

Ideally…

• You’re passionate about nurturing engineering talent, encouraging their development, and also ensuring everyone is aligned with product delivery objectives.
  
  
• You are genuinely excited about developing data products that will positively impact over a million people and also our environment.
  
  
• You’re passionate about how organisations can use data to flourish.
  
  
• You have experience with data engineering delivering solutions, especially in the Google stack.
  
  
• You know your infrastructure & systems designs from your Terraform to your microservice architectures.
  
  
• You have experience working with high performing engineering teams who have a strong sense of autonomy in their technical decision making.
  
  
• You use your influence and stakeholder management skills to have a wide-reaching impact.
  
  
• You love building scalable, resilient data products.
  
  
• You seek learning opportunities to deepen your expertise or broaden your knowledge.

OVO Values

Here at OVO we have three core values that guide us as a business: 

Find a Better Way

We always look for a better way, whether that’s by delivering a better service, employing brilliant people or improving our products and processes

Do What's Right

Being open, honest and fair is one of the values which applies to everything we do. We take pride in talking to our customers and delivering exceptional work.

Build Something Great

Simple solutions aren’t quick or easy to find. They take time and tenacity. Our people work to find an answer that helps us ‘build something great’.

Our values are not words on a wall — they are at the heart of our culture. They are how we make decisions and how we treat each other. They are concrete and clear, and reflect what we as people, and as a business, really care about.

OVO’s vision is to power human progress with clean affordable energy for everyone. Would you be interested in joining us to help achieve this?

Brilliant benefits for a world-changing team

Our people are at the heart of Plan Zero. That’s why we offer plenty of green benefits and progressive policies to make you feel at home.

For starters, you’ll get 34 days of holiday (including bank holidays).

Then there’s Flex Pay. It’s an extra 9% of your salary on top of your core pay to use as you like. You can take it as cash, add to your pension, or choose to spend it on a huge range of flex benefits.

Here’s a taster of what’s on offer:

For your health

With benefits like a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance depending on your career level, critical illness cover, life assurance, health assessments, and more

For your wellbeing

With gym membership, gadget, travel and cyber insurance, workplace ISA, will writing services, DNA testing, dental insurance, and more

For your lifestyle

With extra holiday buying, discount dining, culture cards, tech loans, and supporting your favourite charities with give-as-you-earn donations

For your home 

Get up to £300 off any OVO Energy plan (when you pay by Direct Debit), plus personal carbon offsetting and great discounts on smart thermostats and EV chargers

For your commute

Nab a great deal on ultra-low emission car leasing, plus our cycle to work scheme and public transport season ticket loans

Want to hear about our full range of flexible benefits and progressive people policies? Our People Team can tell you everything you need to know.

Learn more about working in the OVO family of companies on our careers page and Glassdoor. We’re also delighted to have received a Top Employers certificate in 2018, 2019 and 2020!