Full Time Permanent position
Hybrid role based in our City Centre offices

What we offer

We have embraced a hybrid working model for most of our positions, which means that you can enjoy a balanced approach of working from home for part of the week and working from the office for the remainder of the week.

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including competitive salaries and bonuses, robust Learning and Development support, excellent Defined Contribution pension and comprehensive Wellbeing initiatives and support to name but a few.

Further details on our benefits package can be accessed here Benefits (life-careers.com)

At Irish Life, our purpose is to help people build better futures. Our company values shape everything we do and underpin our vision of being the driving force behind Ireland’s financial, physical, and mental well-being.

We believe in doing the right thing—acting with integrity and making fair, responsible decisions. We aim high, setting ambitious goals and find better ways to innovate and improve. Our customers are at the heart of everything we do and we are dedicated to understanding their needs and exceeding their expectations. Achieving this this is only possible when we work best together—in a supportive, collaborative environment where every idea and contribution is valued.

Role Overview

The Connected Data team is core to the Irish Life strategy, and wider European group data ambitions. This team consists of both Data Engineering (responsible primarily for data platform operations, management, and pipelines), and Data Insights (responsible for analytics and data science).

We have an exciting opportunity for a senior data engineer with a focus on Platform, to join our team in an exciting field, using modern technologies (using Snowflake as our core data and AI platform, and a modern analytical toolchain wrapped around it), on a team that has a high impact within Irish Life and in the wider European Group. You’ll get to shape the technical development and engineering practices within the team from the start.

This role will report to the Head of Data Engineering.

What you will help us to achieve

• Design, develop and own the data platform architecture and roadmap to support a wide range of AI and reporting initiatives – including business critical workloads needing strong levels of operational support
• Analyse, design, develop, deploy and optimise production-grade, high-quality data pipelines across the team, to optimise data management in our cloud data and AI platform – with a key focus on scalability and data security
• Build out the architecture and design for data management with Snowflake at the core, leveraging the broader Microsoft Azure ecosystem including Azure Data Factory
• Design and implement solutions that provide the business with a range of reporting outcomes using data from a variety of system and transactional storage solutions with a range of data freshness requirements
• Collaborate with the Data Insights teams and understand their requirements to design, develop and deploy data extraction and transformation solutions to the data science consumers
• Ensure the data architecture and platform complies with data privacy and security policies
• Ensure monitoring and alerting are designed into the platform and workloads so that we are aware of any issues before our stakeholders and can be dealt with proactively
• Lead and mentor junior engineers – leading by example with engineering excellence

What you will need to be successful in the role

• 5+ years of hands-on experience of architecting, deploying and running Database platforms such as Snowflake, or other cloud SQL and AI oriented platforms
• Strong track record of automation using ETL Frameworks (e.g. dbt, or others), scripting languages such as Python, PowerShell, Terraform or others, and associated DevOps/CI/CD practices
• Knowledge of ETL/ELT tools such as SSIS, Azure Data Factory, dbt, etc. and operational support arrangements for same
• Experience in working in a cloud-based environment such as Azure, with experience in systems integration across cloud-based services
• Experience working with Financial Services type data with associated data protection considerations is desirable
• A firm understanding of data modelling and normalisation concepts
• Experience using version control tools (git) and a track record of artefact management
• Experience designing, building and operating highly available, highly scalable systems
• Broad understanding of data platforms and tooling in the data domain with evidence of keeping up to speed as data evolves into new areas, e.g. Gen-AI, agentic-AI, formats such as parquet and Iceberg, etc.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, able to explain complex concepts to diverse audiences

About us

Irish Life is one of Ireland’s largest financial institutions with a presence across a range of financial services markets. We are one of Ireland’s leading financial services groups with over 1.5 million customers. For over 80 years, we’ve been helping people to look after their life insurance, pension and investment needs, and more recently their health insurance.

It is a subsidiary of Great-West Lifeco and a member of the Power Financial Corporation group of companies.

We are proud of our culture of developing and supporting the growth and professional development of our people. The focus has resulted in a team of top talent with high standards, positioning us at the forefront of our industry.

The company reserves the right to draw up a shortlist as part of the selection process. Where Agency assistance is required the Irish Life Recruitment Team will engage directly with suppliers. Unsolicited CVs / profiles supplied to Irish Life by Recruitment Agencies will not be accepted for this role.

Irish Life is proud to be an Equal Opportunities employer. We have created an environment of inclusion and growth to help people achieve their potential, to ensure they can bring their whole selves to work and to feel valued. We celebrate diversity of thought and perspective and want all of our employees to feel valued, respected and supported.

We have built a culture that promotes equality and inclusion for all of our current and future employees and strive to ensure that our behaviours, processes and practices are aligned to this culture.

If you require any accommodations during the recruitment process please contact lifecareers@irishlife.ie and we will be delighted to ensure you are fully supported to be your best.

ILFS supports Equal Opportunity and is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Senior Data Platform Engineer

Benefits

Job Description