Senior Data Acquisition & Automation Specialist

The Research & Insights team is a highly specialised data unit within Better Collective's Paid Media organisation. We focus on advanced market intelligence, turning competitive signals, from tactical shifts to structural market changes, into proprietary data products and automated pipelines. These insights give our internal performance marketing and commercial teams a definitive edge. Operating at the intersection of data extraction, advanced automation, and AI, we replace manual workflows with high-velocity data collection infrastructure to map the competitive landscape in real time.

We are looking for a Senior Data Acquisition & Automation Specialist to initially take hands-on ownership of our data collection engines, extraction infrastructure, and automation pipelines. This is a highly proactive role with a designated path to leadership.

You will work closely with the Head of Research & Insights, translating strategic research opportunities and initial data discoveries into robust, automated data pipelines. While you will begin as a hands-on senior individual contributor, you will immediately draft a roadmap to hire and scale a high-performing team of data extraction and automation specialists within near future, subsequently transitioning into the formal Team Lead. This role requires a structured, analytical mindset combined with the vision to integrate AI agents that streamline and automate traditional analytical processes

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  Infrastructure & Pipeline Ownership: Build, automate, and maintain the flow of data from the outside world into our internal systems, scaling initial research prototypes into stable, scheduled data pipelines.

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  Advanced Data Extraction: Architect data collection solutions that leverage APIs, as well as scalable web scraping (using Python, Octoparse, Firecrawl, or alike) to effectively extract data from complex external sources.

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  AI Orchestration: Design prompt pipelines and connect LLM APIs within automation flows (e.g., n8n) to automatically clean, parse, and analyse raw data, effectively automating core analytical functions.

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  Data Flow Architecture: Ensure data is structured, categorised, and handed off cleanly. You will collaborate with internal database experts to ensure seamless ingestion into our main databases.

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  Monitoring & Operational Maturity: Implement alerting, heartbeats, and health checks across all extraction infrastructure to ensure immediate detection and fast recovery when external sources or APIs change.

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  Future Team Growth & Roadmap: Define the future structure of your unit upon joining; lead the recruitment, onboarding, and scaling of your team within the near future to step into the potential Team Lead role.

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  Agile Execution & Future Management: Initially drive your own high-velocity technical workflow, while setting the foundational agile processes, structured testing sprints, and clean documentation standards required to manage a future team.

• Proven Data Extraction Expertise: You possess extensive experience in harvesting data via REST APIs and scalable web scraping, demonstrating technical proficiency in Python, Selenium, or similar to parse complex HTML/JSON payloads.

• Automation & Integration Mastery: You bring high-level expertise in No-Code/Low-Code platforms (ideally n8n or Make.com) and the technical comfort required to architect and orchestrate sophisticated automated data flows.

• Applied AI Skills: You preferably have hands-on experience integrating LLM APIs and prompt engineering into agentic workflows to efficiently process and analyse unstructured competitive insights.

• Database Familiarity: You have a solid grasp of databases and data structures; while you lead the extraction logic, you will collaborate with internal experts for deep architectural ingestion.

• Paid Media Context: A background in digital marketing infrastructure, including tracking links, redirect chains, and ad libraries, is highly advantageous for navigating our specialised landscape.

• Leadership Trajectory: You are ready to transition into a formal leadership role in the near term, bringing calm, architectural logic and technical structure to high-velocity research requests to set an example for future hires.

• Tool-Agnostic Mindset: You prioritise speed-to-impact and agile execution, selecting the most effective tool for the task rather than being restricted to a single technology stack.

• Are a deeply analytical problem solver who can navigate complex web infrastructures or undocumented APIs.

• Look at initial research notes and immediately see the exact automation loop and toolset needed to scale them.

• Focus relentlessly on data provenance and reliability, ensuring extraction flows proactively alert the team if a break occurs.

• Are a natural mentor who inspires autonomy, structured thinking, and continuous learning in everyone around you, making you an ideal future team leader.

We look forward to hearing from you and accept applications until 31st August.
Please submit your CV and cover letter in PDF; only applications submitted in English will be considered.

Expected start date: as soon as possible.