Analytics Engineer at Ideal Direct Ltd, United Kingdom, £Apply with Day Rate

About Ideal Direct

We're an eight-figure UK e-commerce group running seven consumer brands across Amazon UK/EU/US, eBay, Shopify, TikTok Shop, and retail partners including B&Q. Small, sharp team. We move fast and we ship things.

The role

Our Head of Finance has been doing too much of the data layer herself — pulling from APIs, wrangling, and building internal apps with Claude Code. We need an Analytics Engineer to own this properly: fix the foundations, build the pipelines, and take over the data infrastructure end-to-end.

This is real, messy, valuable operational data — what we order, what we sell, how we forecast. Not slideware.

First 90 days

• Complete our SQL warehouse migration from Azure (started by a previous contractor, needs senior ownership).
• - Build and document API pipelines for Amazon SP-API, Shopify, eBay, QuickBooks, and ad platforms.
• - Run a data quality audit and surface issues we're not currently catching.
• - Begin taking over the internal app build pipeline (currently Claude Code with our Head of Finance).

Must-haves

• 5+ years building production data infrastructure.
• - Strong SQL warehouse design (target stack to be finalised — Postgres / MSSQL / Snowflake on the table).
• - Python for ETL, comfortable with REST and GraphQL APIs at scale.
• - Hands-on with at least one major e-commerce API (Amazon SP-API ideal).
• - Owns work end-to-end: scope, build, document, hand over.
• - Clear written communication — can explain trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.

Nice-to-haves

• dbt, Airbyte, or Fivetran experience.
• - AI-augmented dev (Claude Code, Cursor).
• - Multi-brand or multi-marketplace e-commerce background.
• - Finance / FP&A adjacent data work.

Ways of working

Remote-first, async-friendly. Weekly check-ins with the Director and Head of Finance. ClickUp for tasks, GitHub for code. Flat, decision-quick team.

Engagement & rates

Fixed-scope project to start (8-12 weeks) covering migration plus initial pipelines. Convert to ongoing fractional or long-term contractor if delivery is strong. Day rates negotiable by location and seniority.

How to apply

Send us:

• A short note on a similar project you've owned end-to-end.
• - Your day rate and availability.
• - One example of a tricky data quality issue you've caught and resolved.

We screen via a paid 3-hour trial task on real anonymised data before any commitment.