Senior Data Engineer — Data Architecture Discovery & Documentation

Role: Technical Data Consultant — Data Architecture Discovery & Documentation Contract Type: £400 - 500/day Outside IR35 | 3 months (initial) Location: Hybrid — Manchester & Birchwood, Warrington (2 days/week onsite) Overview: A retail and gaming client needs an experienced consultant to reverse-engineer their Retail data landscape — spanning an on-premise SQL Server data warehouse and AWS estate — and convert undocumented, tribal knowledge into a sustainable, well-documented operating model. Core Responsibilities: • Conduct independent deep-dive discovery and code reviews to map data flow from Retail systems into the data warehouse • Produce high-level and granular architecture diagrams (cloud resources, ETL/ELT pipelines, third-party integrations) • Author operational runbooks for troubleshooting, restart and maintenance of critical pipelines • Audit and document the SQL logic behind key retail metrics for reporting consistency • Design a lightweight, maintainable documentation framework (Confluence/Markdown-based) for the team What We're Looking For: • Proven experience reverse-engineering data systems with little or no existing documentation • Strong hands-on experience with SQL Server and AWS Lakehouse architecture • Expert-level ability to produce clear, structured architecture diagrams • Comfortable working independently, and skilled at engaging senior engineers who may be protective of their systems — positioning the work as empowering rather than replacing them