Principal Data Engineer

We are seeking a Principal Data Engineer to join our Measurement team within the Partnership Intelligence Platform. This is a senior individual contributor role focused on driving technical excellence, architectural direction, and long-term platform strategy.

You will bring deep expertise in managing AWS services and technologies such as Airflow, Snowflake, MS SQL Server as well as experience designing and scaling complex, distributed data systems. As a key technical leader, you will help define the future of our data platform and work closely with teams in North America and India to ensure global alignment on technical direction, data architecture, and engineering best practices.

As a Principal Data Engineer, you will be a technical thought leader and hands-on architect, driving the design and implementation of robust, high-performance data systems that power analytics and insights across the organization.

You will provide technical oversight, influence the data ingestion platform roadmap, and collaborate with cross-functional partners to ensure our data ecosystem is scalable, reliable, and aligned with global business goals.

This role is ideal for someone who combines deep technical skill with strategic vision and enjoys mentoring and elevating the technical bar across engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities

Serve as a technical authority on data architecture, data modelling, and pipeline design, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability across the platform.

Define and guide the long-term architectural vision for our data platform and services, collaborating closely with product and engineering leadership.

Partner with North American engineering and product teams to ensure global consistency in technical direction, design standards, and implementation patterns.

Provide technical mentorship and oversight, guiding engineers on complex design and implementation challenges.

Lead architectural design reviews and contribute to defining standards and best practices for data engineering across teams.

Design and implement large-scale, high-performance data pipelines, ensuring efficient data flow, transformation, and quality assurance.

Contribute to our DevOps culture, ensuring our solutions are observable, secure, and resilient in production.

Stay current with emerging technologies and trends, proactively identifying opportunities to evolve our data architecture and toolset.

Partner with cross-functional teams (Product Management, Data Science, Analytics, and Infrastructure) to align on data strategy, governance, and technical priorities.

Requirements

Experience

10+ years of experience in data or software engineering, with a strong focus on distributed systems and data infrastructure.

Proven experience architecting and scaling large data platforms in a cloud environment (preferably AWS).

5+ years of experience designing and optimizing data models, ETL/ELT pipelines, and orchestration workflows.

Hands-on experience building and maintaining complex data ecosystems involving technologies such as Airflow, Snowflake, MS SQL Server, and .NET.

Prior experience providing technical leadership and architectural guidance across multiple teams or projects.

Experience working in globally distributed teams, collaborating across time zones and regions (especially North America).

Technical Skills

Deep expertise in data orchestration and batch processing technologies (e.g., Apache Airflow).

Advanced proficiency in SQL, Snowflake, and MS SQL Server.

Strong programming skills in Python or C#, with emphasis on performance optimization and maintainability.

Hands-on experience with AWS services (e.g., S3, Lambda, Redshift, Glue, ECS, CloudFormation).

Familiarity with streaming data architectures, containerization (Docker), and CI/CD practices.

Experience with observability and monitoring for data systems (e.g., New Relic, CloudWatch).

Proven ability to evaluate and introduce new technologies that align with long-term platform strategy.

Soft Skills

Strategic thinker with the ability to balance short-term delivery and long-term architectural goals.

Strong communicator who can translate complex technical concepts across technical and non-technical audiences.

Collaborative mindset, comfortable influencing and aligning teams across geographies and functions.

Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with a high attention to detail.

Self-driven and proactive, with the ability to operate independently and make sound technical decisions.

Mindset

Passionate about technical excellence and continuous improvement.

Comfortable driving strategic architectural discussions while remaining hands-on with implementation.

Curious, innovative, and eager to experiment with new technologies.

Committed to building a robust, scalable, and future-ready data platform.