Data Engineer

About the role

Leicester City Football Club are excited to be recruiting for a skilled and enthusiastic Data Engineer to join the Club’s Performance Analysis department. This role will play an integral part in the development of the department’s data pipelines and maintenance of existing databases.

This role will also be responsible for building a high-quality codebase to serve the data analysis and data science functions, directly supporting the success of the Club’s First Team.

About the club

Knowing some of the history of Leicester City Football Club helps you appreciate the sense of community, spirit and family for which the Foxes are renowned for.

Formed in 1884, the Club was promoted to the Premier League in 2014 when the Foxes returned to the top tier as the Championship title-winners. In 2016, Leicester City became Premier League champions.

This remarkable achievement qualified us for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in the Club’s history, and we subsequently reached the quarterfinals. The Club continued to build on that success and celebrated lifting the prestigious FA Cup in May 2021.

Following relegation from the Premier League in 2023, the Club made it the top priority to get straight back up and did so as Championship title-winners in the 2023-2024 season.

Under the stewardship of King Power and the Club’s CEO Susan Whelan, Leicester City Football Club is deeply committed to the local community and its supporters and continually strives to ensure that every point of engagement with fans is truly world class including the experience on matchdays.

Investment in the Club continues, with the 2021 opening of a new state-of-the-art training ground in North Leicestershire.

Job description

Main Objectives:

• Take a lead role in developing the club’s databases and data pipelines, ensuring efficient and reliable data flows across the First Team football departments.
• Automate and optimise ETL processes, transforming raw data from various sources into high-quality, structured datasets ready for analysis and reporting.
• Manage the club’s cloud-based data resources (AWS).
• Collaborate with data specialists to translate business requirements into technical data solutions, supporting data-driven decision-making across the club.
• Drive improvements in data architecture, to support advanced analytics, reporting, and dashboarding.
• Ensure the security, documentation, and continuous improvement of the club’s data assets through strong version control and best practices.
• Contribute to the data strategy of the club, working closely with data specialists across First Team football departments.
• Support the clubs Data Scientists and Analysts in meeting their reporting and data discovery objectives.
• Continually develop and improve skills in the field of data engineering and data science.
• At all times, carry out their responsibilities with due regard to the Club values and policies and procedures, in particular Health & Safety, Equality and Diversity, Confidentiality and with regard to the Data Protection Act.

Additional Skills/ Requirements:

• Excellent communication skills and experienced when working with stakeholders of varying technical levels.
• Proactive and structured approach to problem solving.
• Good time management and organisational skills, and ability to adhere to deadlines.
• Ability to prioritise needs and work in a flexible manner suited to the fast-paced nature of professional football.
• Adhere and communicate the Club’s brand values to stakeholders whenever the opportunity arises.
• Fluent in English (spoken and written).
• A commitment to continued professional development.

Person specification

Essential:

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative discipline, such as Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Engineering, Data Science, or a STEM related subject.
• Academic and/or industry experience in back-end software design and development.
• Proficient in Python and SQL, with strong coding skills to develop, test, and maintain scalable data pipelines.
• Strong understanding of relational database systems and experience in designing efficient data models and schemas.
• Experience building and maintaining robust ETL pipelines, with the ability to handle structured and unstructured data sources.
• Strong experience in designing both relational and denormalised database models, optimising for efficient querying, scalability, and performance across different use cases
• Hands-on experience deploying and managing data solutions on cloud platforms like AWS (preferred), Azure, or GCP.
• Skilled in task orchestration and workflow automation tools such as Apache Airflow or similar.
• Experience of using version control tools such as GitHub or GitLab.
• Capable of translating technical data logic and solutions to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Desirable:

• Master’s degree in a quantitative discipline, such as Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Engineering, Data Science, or a STEM related subject.
• Experience with big data tools such as Amazon Redshift, Databricks, Spark, Hadoop or similar.
• Experience with deploying serverless and containerisation code in the cloud.
• Passion for football and an appreciation for the fast-moving nature of an elite sport environment (prior experience of working in sports is not necessary).
• Experience with football datasets such as Statsbomb, Skillcorner, Second Spectrum, Opta etc.

Role requirements

• To have a flexible approach to working hours, to respond to issues around cater for match days and other key events in Leicester City’s football calendar.
• To comply and promote the Club’s policies and procedures to include Safeguarding, Equality & Diversity and GDPR compliance
• Understanding of the governance, security and cyber security requirements including areas such as General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)
• To undertake required training including mandatory Club Equality and Diversity, Health and Safety and Safeguarding Induction.

Benefits package

Leicester City Football Club offers a competitive salary and pension scheme with life assurance to all its permanent employees. Employees are able to benefit from free onsite parking as well as an onsite subsidised staff restaurant. Employees also benefit from up to 33 days’ annual leave including bank holidays.

How to apply

Click ‘Apply’ via THIS LINK

One City. One Club. One Leicester.

Leicester City Football Club believes that football is for all, and we are committed to Diversity and Inclusion, where valuing the individual is our highest priority. We are working to see equality across all areas of the Club and welcome applications from all areas of the community. We are committed to the wellbeing of our staff and welcome applicants seeking flexible hours.

If you have any requirements in regard to the recruitment process, please let us know; we are happy to support your needs.

Next Steps

Suitable candidates will be interviewed as and when they apply, the role will be shut down as soon as a suitable candidate has been sourced.