Data Platform Engineer

Company Description

Depop is a peer-to-peer circular fashion marketplace where anyone can buy, sell and discover secondhand fashion. Our mission is simple: to make fashion circular by making secondhand as exciting and rewarding as buying new.
Founded in 2011, Depop’s diverse community has helped move resale into the mainstream, where buying secondhand is no longer an alternative, but how people of different ages now engage with fashion. Today, more than 56 million registered users come to Depop to find great value, express their own personal style and give clothes a longer life. We believe that everything you want already exists, and our role is to help people discover it.
Powered by a team of over 500 people, our company is headquartered in London, with offices in New York. In 2021, Depop became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Etsy - the global marketplace for unique and creative goods - and continues to operate as a standalone company. For more information, visit www.depop.com
We aim to create an inclusive environment where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are or where they’re from. Just as our platform connects people globally, we believe our workplace should reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. We thrive on the power of different perspectives and experiences, knowing they drive innovation and bring us closer to our users.
We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer, providing employment opportunities without regard to age, ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy or maternity, marriage and civil partnership, or any other protected status. We’re continuously evolving our recruitment processes to ensure fairness and are open to accommodating any needs you might have.
AI Disclosure: We use AI tools (Google Gemini) to help our team source and review applications for roles with a high volume of applications. These tools assist our recruiters in identifying great talent but do not replace human decision-making. At Depop, every hiring decision is made by a human.
If, due to a disability, you need adjustments to complete the application, please let us know by sending an email with your name, the role to which you would like to apply, and the type of support you need to complete the application to [email protected].

Role

We're hiring a Data Engineer to work on the Data Platform at Depop. This team owns Kafka and streaming infrastructure, the bronze data lake layer, and event tracking and sessionisation and is building out the next generation of streaming frameworks that will underpin how the rest of the business ingests and processes data.

This role sits within the Data Enablement and you'll partner closely with Data Infrastructure and Analytics Engineering on the boundary between Bronze and Silver, and with ML and Insights, who depend on low-latency streaming data for features and experimentation.

Responsibilities

As a Data Engineer, you can expect to:

• Build and maintain services in our Kafka Connect and streaming pipeline, including the kafka-forwarder and changelogs-processor, under the guidance of senior engineers.
• Contribute to extending the bronze streaming layer across Depop's growing table catalogue, working from well-scoped tickets through to production rollout.
• Help implement data contracts and freshness checks on streaming datasets, and build the quarantine/alerting that keeps bad data out of downstream consumers.
• Take part in the team's support rota, helping other teams onboard new events and troubleshoot streaming issues.
• Write clear documentation and contribute to design discussions, growing your judgement on trade-offs like latency vs completeness and cost vs freshness.
• Pair with senior engineers on more complex pieces of the streaming framework work, building towards owning larger pieces of it yourself.

Requirements

• Some experience building and operating production data pipelines, ideally including Kafka or another streaming/event-driven system.
• Working knowledge of at least one of Scala, Kotlin or Python, and willingness to work across all three as the team requires.
• Familiarity with data warehousing concepts (e.g. medallion architecture bronze/silver/gold) and an interest in data quality and freshness monitoring.
• Comfortable working with Kafka Connect, schema registries, and distributed systems concepts, or keen to build that experience quickly.
• A collaborative approach — this team works closely with Data Infrastructure, ML and Insights, and pairs regularly with senior engineers.

Additional Information

Health + Mental Wellbeing

• PMI and cash plan healthcare access with Bupa
• Subsidised counselling and coaching with Self Space
• Cycle to Work scheme with options from Evans or the Green Commute Initiative
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for 24/7 confidential support
• Mental Health First Aiders across the business for support and signposting

Work/Life Balance:

• 25 days of annual leave with the option to carry over up to 5 days
• Impact hours: Up to 2 days of additional paid leave per year for volunteering
• Fully paid 4-week sabbatical after completion of 5 years of consecutive service with Depop, to give you a chance to recharge or do something you love.
• Flexible Working: MyMode hybrid-working model with Flex, Office-Based, and Remote options *role-dependent
• All offices are dog-friendly
  

Family Life:

• For birth parent: 20 weeks of paid parental leave for full-time regular employees
• For non-birth parents: 12 weeks of paid parental leave for full-time regular employees 
• IVF leave, shared parental leave, and paid emergency parent/carer leave

Learn + Grow:

• Twice-yearly development chats and yearly performance reviews
• Learning budget
• Upskilling our employees with company-wide training workshops, materials and resources

Your Future:

• Life Insurance (financial compensation of 3x your salary)
• Pension matching up to 6% of full base salary with Aviva

Depop Extras:

• In-office Depop Shop (that’s free!) and a packing station with free delivery.
• Special milestones are celebrated with gifts and rewards!