Junior Data Engineer

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.

We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise. Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow. For more information, visit WPP.com.

About WPP Open Intelligence

WPP Open Intelligence’s Activation team builds the foundational data infrastructure and high-performance edge services that support WPP’s position in the market. Our platform is deeply integrated with leading supply-side partners in the AdTech industry.

Our edge services handle more than 60,000 classification requests per second, while our contextual classification pipelines process 10,000 requests per second. With operations spanning the US and UK and continued expansion across EMEA and APAC, our engineering team builds robust, scalable, reliable, and privacy-conscious systems at global scale.

Why We’re Hiring

We are expanding our engineering team as we develop a new generation of privacy-preserving data products, extend our infrastructure across EMEA and APAC, and deepen our integrations with leading supply-side partners.

As a Junior Data Engineer , you will contribute to this next stage of growth while learning from experienced engineers. You will help build reliable data systems that are performant, scalable, and designed with privacy and responsible data use in mind.

What You’ll Do

Develop, test, and review data pipelines and related code using team standards, with guidance from experienced engineers.

Work with product managers, analysts, and data scientists to implement well-defined features and improvements.

Build and maintain data-quality checks, documentation, and basic governance practices.

Support investigations into pipeline failures, data inconsistencies, and operational issues, contributing fixes with mentorship.

Build familiarity with the data platform, tooling, and codebase through hands-on development, feedback, and code reviews.

Ask questions, share learnings, and contribute ideas that improve team practices, data quality, and reliability.

Who You’ll Work With

You will work closely with data engineers, software engineers, product managers, analysts, and data scientists. You will report to a Lead Engineer and collaborate with colleagues supporting WPP Open Intelligence’s growing global infrastructure.

What You’ll Need

Early-career experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, software development with a data focus, or a related internship, graduate role, course, personal project, bootcamp, or open-source contribution.

Practical experience working with data in at least one programming language such as Python, Go, or Scala.

A basic understanding of software engineering fundamentals, algorithms, data structures, and data processing.

Familiarity with Git, testing, or basic CI/CD workflows—or the motivation to develop these skills.

Exposure to a cloud platform such as GCP, AWS, or Azure, or a strong interest in learning cloud practices in a production environment.

Clear communication skills, including the confidence to explain your work, ask questions, and seek support when needed.

Curiosity about data quality, privacy, reliability, and continuous learning.

You do not need to be an expert in every technology listed in this advert. We value strong fundamentals, a willingness to learn, and the ability to apply n