Data Engineer

Heavy Industry & Commodity
Written By Anna Hughes

Job title: Data & Research Engineer, Heavy Industry & Commodity Data Team

Location: London, UK

Contract Type: Full-Time, Permanent 

Salary Grade:  Grade B - C (£46,805 - £68,995) depending on experience

About Us

We are a climate analytics not-for-profit established in 2021. We build open energy transition products without usability barriers and partner with mission-aligned organisations to help scale a global standard for energy transition planning. We are entirely grant-funded by the Quadrature Climate Foundation, European Climate Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies via ClimateWorks, WattTime, ClientEarth, Tara Climate Foundation, and our data is used by developers, financiers, planners and think tanks internationally.

At TransitionZero, we understand that diversity is an essential component of a successful team, whether that be diverse ways of thinking, personal or professional backgrounds and skills. We aim to be the most talented not-for-profit in our vertical, spearheading innovative data solutions through our culture of inclusivity and adaptability. 

Our people are our greatest asset, and the diverse skills and perspectives individuals bring to our organisation are the driving force of our success. As an equal opportunity employer, we do not discriminate based on any protected attribute. Our commitment is to provide equal opportunities, an inclusive work environment, and fairness to everyone. We will therefore consider all qualified applicants in the recruitment process as we welcome all the unique qualities and experiences that make you, you.

About the Role

TransitionZero is now seeking a Python-based Data Engineer to support the development of our Future Energy Outlook (FEO) platform. FEO is a systems data and analysis platform to help accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy system. The successful candidate will join the Heavy Industry and Commodity Data team, helping with the current grant deliverables and populating the  FEO platform with technology specific data. The heavy industry (HI) sector covers steel, cement, aluminium, pulp & paper, and chemicals subsectors. The commodities sector includes materials relevant to the energy transition (e.g. lithium, copper, cobalt, and nickel). This role is not only data-centric but will also involve carrying out research to build domain expertise in aluminium, pulp & paper, and chemicals subsectors and engaging with relevant stakeholders

Goals

Short-Term Goals (6 months after joining)

  • Focus on aluminium, chemicals, pulp and paper subsectors.

  • Deploy and orchestrate heavy industry production and emissions data retrieval and estimation

  • Automate data pipelines for HI sectors

  • Develop and prototype heavy industry production research. 

  • Develop and deploy human-in-the-loop data verification interfaces

  • Engage with data and domain-specific stakeholders

  • Contribute to organization-wide data infrastructure discussions, design and development

Long-Term Goals (12 months after joining):

  • Maintain heavy industry and commodities data ingestion packages and prepare periodic data releases

  • Contribute to publications on HI sector analysis

  • Deploy and orchestrate commodities production data retrieval and estimation

  • Collaborate on the deployment of ML-enhanced alternative data scraping tools (via LLMs, satellite data)

Responsibilities

  • Writing Python code for retrieving, manipulating, and serving heavy industry and commodities data:

  • Developing data ingestion scripts and tooling

  • Containerising and orchestrating data ingestion jobs

  • Preparing periodic data releases

  • Contributing to API and Python client services to query and serve ingested data

  • Helping design and deploy service architecture, containerisation, DevOps and CloudOps processes

  • Participating in day-to-day work planning and execution including stand-up meetings, agile kanban boarding, code reviews, and feedback retrospectives

  • Preparing technical documentation, tutorials, and READMEs

  • Contributing to publications/blogs with analysis on HI sectors 

  • Building domain expertise in aluminium, chemicals and pulp and paper subsectors.

  • Engaging with relevant stakeholders and communicating sectoral analyses.

  • Continuous improvement and learning, both formal and informal

About You:

You are a talented junior or mid-level data engineer with a passion for sustainability. You are a skilled developer with formal training or on-the-job experience writing back-end data services with Python. You will apply your knowledge of Python development to build data retrieving and cleaning scripts, containerised jobs and workflows, webscrapers, extract-transform-load pipelines, and more. You will develop new skills as a developer, including skills in dev/cloud-ops, data architecture, and microservices development and deployment. 

You will develop ownership over key components of the HI data ecosystem and will implement improvements as part of a small team. You have a passion for sustainability and the energy transition, and want to use your technical skills for social good. While we are a rapidly growing tech startup, we are also a non-profit, so a high level of adaptability and willingness to approach challenges with creativity and curiosity is essential.


Skills and Experience:

Essential

Qualifications

  • Degree-level qualifications in software engineering OR a STEM degree with software development experience (3+ years).

  • An interest in sustainability and a desire to work in a fast-paced and flexible start-up environment.

Experience & Knowledge

  • Experience with Python-based development including scripting, data retrieval, and data manipulation 

  • Experience with Github-based version control

Beneficial

  • Qualifications

    • Postgraduate education in software engineering OR postgraduate education in a STEM field with a strong Python-based computing background

    • Postgraduate in a related disciplinary subject (energy systems, mining and materials, earth observation, environmental science)

"Studies have shown that some people from marginalised or underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to a role unless they meet all of the hiring guidelines or qualifications.  Whoever you are, even if you don't meet all of the criteria, if you can demonstrate a variety of skills and experience relevant to this role, we encourage you to apply as you might just be the candidate we hire! At TransitionZero, we're looking for people who are genuinely passionate about what they do, and we welcome all people, regardless of their background.

If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments to the application or hiring process that may better facilitate your participation, please contact Stephanie Ajimokun (stephanie.a@transitionzero.org) for an informal chat. We will make every effort to respond to your request for assistance as soon as possible.

Application Process

Stage 1

Get to know us - 30 minute intro call

Stage 2

Pre-prepared technical assessment, followed by a technical interview - 60 minute call

Stage 3

Final Interview - 30 minute call or in-person interview

Salary and Benefits:

  • Competitive salary based on experience

  • Discretionary annual bonus

  • 25 days annual leave (excluding UK public holidays) and an additional day off on your birthday

  • 3 additional days off for Christmas or other religious or cultural celebrations

  • 20 days annual allowance to work from anywhere in the world

  • Hybrid working and core working hours model

  • Allowance to set up your home office

  • Annual budget and dedicated leave time for relevant training courses

  • Enhanced gender-neutral parental leave (4 months full paid)

  • Private healthcare following successful completion of the probation period

  • Twice yearly offsites


    To apply, please visit: https://transitionzero.typeform.com/hi-data-enginr

Anna Hughes
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