Senior Data Engineer - Contractor
London (Hybrid), 6 months
£700 per day | Inside IR35
A global life sciences organisation is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to join a highly technical data platform team working on ML-adjacent initiatives. The environment is cloud-native and highly data-intensive, with a strong focus on unstructured data and scalable pipelines.
This is a data engineering role rather than an ML Engineer or Data Scientist position. The successful contractor will be comfortable operating close to machine learning workflows, particularly working with PyTorch in a cloud environment, but the core responsibility remains data engineering at scale.
The Role
You will be responsible for designing, building and maintaining data pipelines that support machine learning use cases. The project is particularly heavy on PyTorch for data loading and dataset management, and you will be working with large volumes of files stored in cloud object storage. You’ll collaborate closely with technical stakeholders and domain experts, managing data that is specific to the life sciences space.
Required Skills and Experience
Strong Python development
Extensive experience with cloud object / blob storage for unstructured data
Experience with Google Cloud Storage (preferred) or AWS S3
Hands-on experience using PyTorch, particularly for data loading and dataset management
Five or more years of commercial experience in data engineering or cloud data platforms
Desired Experience
GCP experience, including BigQuery
Strong SQL skills across relational databases such as Microsoft SQL Server or PostgreSQL
Understanding of memory management in data-intensive systems
Nice to Have
Experience with additional GCP services such as Cloud Run, Cloud SQL or Cloud Scheduler
Exposure to machine learning workflows in a production environment
Background or interest in pharma or life sciences
Additional Context
This role is not looking for a specialist ML Engineer. Candidates should have practical exposure to PyTorch or similar frameworks (TensorFlow can be considered), such as supporting ML pipelines or delivering a substantial project over 6-12 months. Experience limited to Pandas or NumPy alone would not be suitable.
Hybrid working, London-based, £700 per day inside IR35.
For more information, please apply or contact Harnham for a confidential discussion.