Data Engineer
Sparta is revolutionising the commodity trading industry with a B2B SAAS that does away with the Excel spreadsheets that traders have been working with for decades.
They are therefore ready to grow the company. Are you a data and development lover and would you like to learn more about them? Read on :)
¿Qué harás?
Let's take a look back to see how they arrived at this point... Come with me ;)
The journey began in 2019 when Felipe (CEO) and Miles (COO) decided to leave the world of oil trading behind them, having worked in this field for more than 35 years. They had realised that the wave of digitalisation and new technologies had not yet reached the commodities trading market. Joined by Luis (CTO), they took the plunge and decided to set up Sparta, with the focus on automating, optimising and increasing the productivity of commodities traders.
To be a good trader, you have to know how to make decisions. To do so, you need to have all the relevant information at your fingertips so that you can take advantage of market opportunities and be faster than the competition. This is where Sparta has revolutionised the industry, as its platform not only aggregates the most relevant information, but also processes it and allows traders to communicate with their teams quickly and efficiently in the cloud. In addition, they allow trading firms to create their own databases featuring the most relevant historical information in order to learn from past experiences. This all takes place in the cloud and is therefore accessible from anywhere, meaning remote work is possible in a sector in which it is not at all common.
In late 2020, they launched their MVP on the web and on iOS, while in 2021, they focused on growing the team and developing the tool. They are now concentrating on continuing to grow, expanding into other markets and using all the data that, currently, they alone possess.
At present, the data team consists of one Data Lead and three Data Engineers, and they are scaling it up to meet the company's new challenges: improving the current product and growing vertically into other commodities.
The type of candidate they are looking for is someone who brings their experience to the table, who is hungry and helps them to continue to grow. A team player, who likes to share and learn in equal parts and whose objective is to continue to grow and help the team to find solutions for each challenge. Of course, you'll always be given the freedom to do what you do best.
Tu evolución
En 1 mes
The first month will be about settling into the team, getting to know people and getting used to working 100% remotely (if you don't have previous experience with this). They want you to have a say and will value the feedbackyou can give them about the way they do things, right from day one. Every member of the team is important for Sparta's growth and, of course, they want you to help them evolve all aspects of the organisation.
During the first month, you'll become familiar with the dynamics of the team and the market in which they operate. You'll also be introduced to theproduct dynamics and you'll participate in team sessions aimed at understanding the data feed to work with, and determining the best way to process and store it.
Tus responsabilidades
You'll be responsible, along with the rest of the team, for organising the infrastructure of the data acquisition and processing side in order to grow Sparta's product.
You'll assist in selecting, designing and implementing data warehouses for different situations (Redis, Kafka, Time-based databases...).
You'll analyse the performance of data storage and queries in order to improve it where possible.
You'll extract large datasets from different sources, standardising and storing them for use.
¿Cómo lo harás?
The data team consists of a Data Lead and two Data engineers. They all have an input and decision-making power, so when the team decides to do something, it gets done.
The CEO and COO are the people with the market expertise and the ones who get the market data feeds that we'll use. Most of the data standardisation and processing requirements will come through them. However, they know that most of the time, the best features and ideas come from the technical team so they'll be happy to hear new ideas and discuss them with you.
They work in an Agile framework with Jira so that nothing gets left behind, and they document everything in Confluence so that the information is always accessible ;)
They have Retros every two weeks to help the team develop and Refinement at the beginning of each Sprint so that everything is well defined.
¿Cuándo trabajarás?
At Sparta, staff really DO enjoy flexible working hours. The only thing they ask is that all members of the team are available during a particular time slot so that you can coordinate (you know, the daily, the Retro, meetings to discuss decisions, etc.).
Día laborable
Jornada completa
Vacaciones
23 días
Jornada laboral
Flexible
Turno continuo
Viernes¿Dónde trabajarás?
Remoto
Sparta began as a 100% REMOTE company. Philip is based in Geneva, Miles in London and Louis in Basel.
They want their product team to be based in Spain, but they strongly believe in the advantages of working remotely and in work-life balance, so you might have colleagues from Cordoba, Salamanca, Valencia or Majorca :)
However, your expenses will be covered if you'd prefer to work in a co-working space.
What's more, they plan to meet up in person from time to time in a chosen location, so that it's not all virtual. The first of these meetings was a great success!
¿Con quién trabajarás?
The team is well-balanced, experienced and well-oiled ❤️🔥.
New staff will be added, but to date the team consists of 20 people making the product a reality :).
- Felipe Elink (CEO) - Has more than 15 years of experience in oil trading, particularly petrols and biofuels in BP and Gunvor (the fourth largest oil trading company in the world). He's Spanish, married and has three children.
- Miles Moseley (COO) - Has 20 years of experience in petrol trading at BP. He's English, married and has two children.
- Luis Ibáñez (CTO) - Has spent ten years working as a programmer and another five managing development teams. He has worked in Spain, London and Switzerland. His latest venture was with Roche Pharmaceuticals. He has twice built teams from scratch and his ideas for keeping team members happy involve doing everything he expected to be done when he was a programmer.
- Javier López (Data Lead) - Javi is a born leader. With almost ten years of experience as a programmer in backend, machine learning and big data, he is key to the evolution of Sparta's product as well as to the medium-and long-term vision of the team.
- Carlos Pérez (Data Engineer) – Expert Data Engineer. With more than 15 years of experience, Carlos is a key member of the Data team. Since joining the team, he has helped to improve the algorithms for real-time data cleansing and data management.
Among them, there are some real manfredites... And more coming soon 😉.
¿Qué piden?
- At least 4-5 years of experience working as a Data engineer:
- Experience with Python for receiving, manipulating and storing real-time data.
- Extensive experience in SQL
- Interest in infrastructure management for Big Data systems
- Experience in extracting large data sets from different sources, standardising them and storing them for use.
- Very good communication skills, both oral and written.
- An advanced level of English: Sparta is a multinational company. The product team is based in Spain, but it also operates in Switzerland, the UK and theUSA, and lots of meetings are in English.
You'd blow their minds if you also...
- Have experience in the trading or fintech world.
- Have worked in a start-up during its growth phase.
Tecnologías
Innegociable
Python
Intermedio 
PostgreSQL
Intermedio
Estaría bien
Kafka
Intermedio
Suma puntos
AWS
Básico
Otras habilidades
Innegociable
Capacidad de autogestión
Pensamiento analítico
Trabajo en equipo
Estaría bien
Aprendizaje Continuo
Visión estratégica
Suma puntos
Proactividad
What the FAQ?
You are only eligible for this position if you are a resident of the UK. If you are Spanish resident, click here instead
No, they're a very agile team and this is reflected in the process itself.
- There'll be an initial meeting with the CTO so you can get to know each other.
- The second phase is a pair programming with the technical team based on a challenge that will be sent to you (not very long!).
- A final meeting with the CEO and COO :)
NO. The team is spread over locations from Cordoba to London, from Valencia to Basel.
They organise occasional face-to-face events lasting a couple of days and hope that you'll want to attend. Of course, they'll cover the cost of these trips :)