Performance tuning

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations.  We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track.  The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.  We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply.  We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. We are seeking an experienced and hands-on Lead Data Engineer to design, build and evolve secure, scalable data platforms for clients across the UK Public Sector and Utilities sectors. You will work closely with architects, engineers and client stakeholders to deliver modern cloud-based data solutions that support operational, analytical and AI-driven use cases. The role combines technical leadership with hands-on engineering, helping clients modernise their data estates while ensuring solutions are secure, reliable and scalable. Working across multiple projects, you will lead the development of batch and real-time data pipelines, support architectural decision-making, and help establish engineering best practices across delivery teams. Strong experience with real-time streaming technologies is essential. Key Responsibilities * Lead the design, development and deployment of secure, scalable data pipelines and data platform components. * Design and implement batch and real-time streaming solutions using modern event-driven architectures. * Own technical design decisions across projects, balancing scalability, security, performance and delivery requirements. * Lead technical workshops, discovery sessions and architecture discussions with client stakeholders. * Assess existing client data platforms and design practical approaches for modernisation, migration and integration. * Build and maintain data ingestion, transformation and integration capabilities across a variety of data sources. * Develop cloud-native data platforms using AWS services and open-source technologies. * Ensure data quality, governance, lineage and security requirements are embedded throughout the data lifecycle. * Drive engineering best practices including code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code. * Support multiple client engagements, helping delivery teams maintain consistent engineering quality and standards. * Mentor and support engineers across project teams, providing technical guidance and leadership. * Perform data modelling, performance tuning and root cause analysis to resolve complex data and platform issues. Essential Skills & Experience Real-Time Streaming & Data Engineering * Strong commercial experience designing and implementing real-time streaming data platforms. * Hands-on experience with technologies such as Apache Kafka, AWS Kinesis, Apache Flink, Spark Streaming, Apache Pulsar, or similar event-driven technologies. * Experience building high-volume, low-latency, resilient data pipelines in production environments. * Strong understanding of modern data engineering patterns, including batch, streaming and hybrid architectures. Data Engineering & Databases * Extensive experience developing and operating enterprise-scale data platforms. * Strong SQL skills and experience designing data models for analytical and operational workloads. * Proficiency in Python or other modern programming languages used for data engineering. * Experience configuring, tuning and optimising relational and NoSQL databases. Cloud & Software Engineering * Strong experience working with AWS cloud services, including EC2, RDS, Lambda, Athena, Glue, S3 and IAM. * Experience working within Agile delivery environments. * Strong understanding of Test-Driven Development (TDD) and automated testing practices. * Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and engineering automation. * Strong understanding of Infrastructure as Code principles. * Experience using version control systems such as Git. Regulated Environments * Experience delivering technology solutions within UK Public Sector, Utilities, Energy, Water, Financial Services or other highly regulated industries. * Understanding of security, governance and compliance considerations within regulated environments. Desirable Skills * Experience with Terraform. * Experience with Docker and Kubernetes. * Knowledge of Ansible and Packer. * Linux and Windows administration experience. * Experience supporting AI, machine learning or advanced analytics platforms. * Experience working on programmes requiring UK Government security clearance. What We're Looking For * Strong technical leadership and problem-solving skills. * Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. * Experience working in complex, regulated environments. * A collaborative approach and willingness to support and mentor others. * A focus on delivering practical solutions that create value for clients. * A passion for building reliable, scalable and secure data platforms. Education Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Mathematics or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience. Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more. Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations.  We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track.  The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.  We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply.  We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. PRINCIPAL ENGINEER – DATA PLATFORM Location: Remote (UK-based; Security Clearance Required) A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you don’t currently hold SC clearance, we can support you in applying, provided you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 5 years. As a Principal Data Platform Engineer, you will define and drive the technical vision, architecture, and evolution of data platforms for a government client. You will operate at a systems and organisational level, shaping how data is ingested, processed, governed, and consumed across multiple teams and services. This role goes beyond hands-on engineering — it requires deep technical authority, cross-team influence, and strategic decision-making to ensure platforms are secure, scalable, resilient, and aligned to long-term business outcomes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KEY RESPONSIBILITIES * Define and own the technical strategy for data platform architecture, balancing short-term delivery with long-term scalability and maintainability. * Lead the design of complex, distributed data systems, including batch and real-time processing at scale. * Establish platform-wide standards, patterns, and best practices for data engineering, reliability, and security. * Act as a technical authority and mentor, guiding senior and lead engineers across teams. * Drive architecture decisions across multiple squads, ensuring alignment with enterprise and government standards. * Partner with architects, product leaders, and stakeholders to translate ambiguous requirements into scalable technical solutions. * Ensure high availability, fault tolerance, and low-latency performance across critical data services. * Champion engineering excellence, including TDD, BDD, observability, and continuous delivery practices. * Oversee data modelling standards and governance, ensuring consistency, lineage, and integrity across systems. * Lead cross-team incident analysis and root cause resolution, driving systemic improvements. * Evaluate and introduce new technologies, tools, and frameworks to evolve platform capabilities. * Provide technical leadership in client engagements, influencing decisions and managing senior stakeholder expectations. * Ensure operational excellence, including resilience planning, cost optimisation, and platform sustainability. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- REQUIRED EXPERIENCE & COMPETENCIES NON-TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES * Operating effectively in high ambiguity and incomplete problem spaces * Influencing senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams * Navigating complex client environments and competing priorities * Leading through technical authority rather than hierarchy * Driving alignment across multiple teams and domains * Continuously evaluating and adopting emerging technologies strategically ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES * Extensive experience designing and building large-scale, distributed data platforms * Deep expertise in Java-based systems and modern backend architectures * Strong experience with streaming and event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka, Kinesis) * Experience with large-scale data processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Flink, Kafka Streams) * Expertise in cloud-native architectures, ideally on AWS (including Lambda, S3, managed services) * Strong understanding of data pipeline design, orchestration, and optimisation * Experience with data modelling at scale, including schema design and evolution * Expertise in relational and NoSQL database design and performance tuning * Proven track record of implementing CI/CD, observability, and platform reliability practices * Strong experience with DevOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) * Ability to define and enforce engineering standards across teams ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DESIRABLE SKILLS * Advanced expertise in data modelling strategies and trade-offs across systems * Experience with search and indexing platforms (Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Solr) * Strong knowledge of CI/CD ecosystems (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, Drone) * Experience with infrastructure automation tools (Terraform, Ansible, Packer) * Exposure to data governance, security, and compliance frameworks in regulated environments ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUALIFICATIONS * Degree in Computer Science or a related field (or equivalent experience) * Typically 10+ years of experience in software/data engineering, with significant time spent in architecture or principal-level roles Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more. Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.

Summary of the Role: As Product Engineer (Full Stack) at Maze, you'll be the technical force behind our customer-facing product experience, owning the complete stack from UI to API while moving at startup velocity. This is a unique opportunity to join as one of the early engineering team members of a well-funded startup building at the intersection of generative AI and cybersecurity. You'll work alongside our full stack product team with significant autonomy, owning your own API layer that powers the React application, enabling you to move fast and deliver exceptional experiences without dependencies or blockers. You'll take full ownership of feature development from concept to production, building both the elegant UI components that security teams interact with daily and the robust API infrastructure that makes it all work. Your success will be measured by delivery velocity, product quality, autonomous execution, and the customer experience you create—not by process adherence or ticket completion. This role is perfect for a hands-on full stack engineer who has thrived in fast-paced B2B SaaS environments, values independence and ownership, and wants to build something extraordinary with a modern tech stack from the ground up. Your Contributions to Our Journey: * Own Product Feature Development: Take complete ownership of features from front-end UI through to API implementation and database layer, delivering end-to-end functionality that delights customers and drives product adoption * Build with Modern Front-End Excellence: Craft exceptional user experiences using React, TypeScript, TailwindCSS, and the TanStack ecosystem (Router, Query, Table), creating intuitive interfaces for complex security workflows with attention to detail and performance * Design and Maintain API Infrastructure: Build and own performant REST APIs using our Python/FastAPI backend, ensuring scalable, maintainable services that power the front-end while maintaining clean architecture and performance optimization * Drive Autonomous Execution: Operate with high independence and startup energy—identify what needs building, make technical decisions quickly, and execute without waiting for perfect requirements or extensive process * Optimize for Performance and Scale: Continuously improve application performance across the stack, from database query optimization to front-end rendering efficiency, ensuring our platform scales elegantly as we grow * Contribute to Architectural Decisions: Participate in technical discussions and architectural planning, bringing your experience to help shape our front-end architecture and potentially grow into owning architectural decisions as the team scales * Balance Speed with Quality: Move at startup pace while maintaining high standards—ship features rapidly, gather feedback, iterate quickly, but never compromise on code quality or customer experience What You Need to Be Successful: * Proven Full Stack Product Experience: 6+ years building production applications with strong command of both front-end and back-end development—you must be genuinely skilled at both, not primarily one with dabbling in the other * Strong TypeScript and React Expertise: Deep, hands-on experience with TypeScript and React (or other modern component-based frameworks) in production environments, with strong understanding of component architecture, performance optimization, and modern patterns * Performant RESTful API Development: Proven track record building performant RESTful APIs with server-side frameworks, with experience designing scalable API architectures, optimizing endpoint performance, and building maintainable backend services * B2B SaaS Background: Direct experience in B2B SaaS product companies where you've built features for business users, understanding the unique requirements of enterprise product development and customer-facing applications * Database Performance Intuition: Strong understanding of database interactions and query optimization—you instinctively know when a query might blow up and how to structure data access for performance at scale * Startup Velocity Mindset: Thrives in fast-paced, ambiguous environments with bias for action—you "just go get it, go do it" without waiting for perfect specs, comfortable making pragmatic technical decisions quickly * Attention to Detail with Speed: Exceptional balance of moving fast while caring deeply about customer experience and code quality—you build things right the first time while maintaining velocity * Collaborative Independence: Comfortable working autonomously and owning your work end-to-end, while also collaborating effectively with designers, product managers, and other engineers when needed * Nice to Haves: * Python and FastAPI experience for our backend stack * Kubernetes/EKS experience for understanding our deployment environment and infrastructure * Temporal workflow orchestration experience for complex, distributed workflows * PostgreSQL optimization skills and experience with database performance tuning at scale * Experience integrating LLMs into applications, understanding how to build AI-powered features into production products * Experience with our specific front-end stack: TailwindCSS, TanStack ecosystem (Router, Query, Table), shadcn/ui, Radix UI * Infrastructure knowledge and comfort working with cloud platforms or infrastructure-as-code tools * Design system or component library development experience * Background at technical B2B SaaS companies where product velocity and customer experience were primary drivers Why Join Us: * Ambitious Challenge: We're using generative AI (LLMs and agents) to solve some of the most pressing challenges in cybersecurity today. You'll be building the product experiences that security teams interact with daily, creating intuitive interfaces for breakthrough AI-powered solutions. * Expert Team: We are a team of hands-on leaders with experience in Big Tech and Scale-ups. Our team has been part of the leadership teams behind multiple acquisitions and an IPO. * Impactful Work: Cybersecurity is a force for good - helping to stop cyber attacks ultimately helps deliver better outcomes for all of us. Your work will directly enable security teams to protect organizations worldwide from real threats. * Build an AI-Native Company: We're building a new company in the AI era with the opportunity to design everything from the ground up - you'll work with a modern, carefully chosen tech stack and help establish engineering practices that scale with us through hypergrowth. * Technical Ownership and Growth: True end-to-end ownership with your own API layer, freedom to make architectural decisions, and opportunity to grow into front-end architectural leadership as we scale the team and product.