What are the responsibilities and job description for the Lead Data & AI Platform Engineer position at Harnham?
About the Opportunity
We are partnering with a global investment firm undergoing a major build-out of its data and AI infrastructure.
The organization is investing heavily in a firm-wide data platform to power:
- Investment research and diligence
- Portfolio intelligence
- Client reporting and narrative generation
- Secure, governed AI workflows
This is a foundational, high-impact role within a small engineering team, offering the opportunity to shape how data and AI are leveraged across the entire investment lifecycle.
The Role
This role combines architectural ownership with hands-on engineering, focused on building scalable, AI-ready data systems from the ground up.
You will work closely with senior technical leadership and business stakeholders to translate complex workflows into production-grade platforms.
Key Responsibilities
- Design and maintain a modern lakehouse architecture (Bronze / Silver / Gold layers)
- Build scalable data ingestion and transformation pipelines
- Structure data for AI-enabled retrieval, indexing, and analytics
- Implement data governance, lineage, and access control frameworks
- Partner directly with business stakeholders to translate requirements into technical solutions
Ideal Candidate Profile
- 7–10 years of experience in data engineering or platform engineering
- Proven experience building data platforms from scratch
- Strong experience with cloud platforms (Azure preferred; AWS/GCP also considered)
- Deep experience with distributed data processing frameworks
- Strong Python proficiency
- Experience implementing production-grade governance and access controls
- Ability to work cross-functionally and communicate with non-technical stakeholders
Preferred Experience
- Experience deploying LLM-enabled or retrieval-based systems
- Familiarity with vector search, embeddings, or RAG architectures
- Background in financial services or regulated environments
- Experience mentoring or guiding junior engineers
- Exposure to AI orchestration or multi-model systems
Why This Role
- Build greenfield data and AI infrastructure at an institutional level
- Direct impact on firm-wide intelligence and decision-making systems
- Operate across both strategy and hands-on execution
- Join a lean, high-caliber engineering team with significant ownership
Salary : $220,000 - $260,000