Principal Engineer, Data Platform
Description
This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal Engineer, Data Platform based in the United States.
As Principal Engineer, Data Platform, you will shape the technical direction and build the capabilities behind a large-scale, cloud-native data ecosystem supporting a distributed microservices platform. You will play a pivotal role in the transition toward a cell-based architecture, enabling reliable data movement, isolation, and scalability across regions and geographies. Working across a diverse range of storage technologies, you will create shared platforms, tooling, and standards that empower engineering teams to manage their own data infrastructure. A major focus will be designing and delivering large-scale migrations with minimal downtime and strong safeguards. You will champion a managed-first approach while ensuring the reliability and performance of both managed and self-operated systems. This is a hands-on technical leadership position combining architecture, implementation, cross-functional influence, and mentorship.
Accountabilities
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Define the architecture, technical standards, and long-term roadmap for the Data Platform and its storage ecosystem.
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Design and build capabilities for large-scale data migrations across cells, regions, and geographies, including tools for moving, splitting, validating, and rolling back data with minimal downtime.
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Develop self-service platforms, shared libraries, and tooling that allow product teams to provision, operate, and scale their own storage systems.
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Lead data-layer changes required by the cell-based architecture, including data placement, tenant routing, replication, and isolation.
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Establish and implement a managed-first strategy, selecting managed services where appropriate and operating self-managed systems when there is a clear technical need.
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Identify and address scalability, performance, and reliability limitations across data stores, regions, cells, and deployment models before they become incidents.
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Partner closely with Cloud Platform, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and Developer Experience (DevEx) teams to deliver reliable platform capabilities.
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Influence architectural decisions across the organization, raise engineering standards, and mentor Staff and Senior Engineers.
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Apply AI-powered tools to platform engineering workflows, including slow-query analysis and incident diagnosis.
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Extensive hands-on experience designing, building, and operating data platforms and large-scale storage systems.
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Proven production experience with technologies such as MongoDB, ClickHouse, Redis, and PostgreSQL.
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Strong understanding of cloud-native data storage, including managed data services on AWS.
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Advanced experience with Kubernetes, containers, and distributed systems.
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Demonstrated success designing and executing large-scale data migrations, particularly live migrations.
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Experience with cell-based, multi-tenant, or multi-region architectures.
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Background building internal platforms and developer tooling used by other engineering teams.
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Comfort with an engineering model in which teams own and operate the systems they build.
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Proven ability to deliver significant technical changes across codebases owned by other teams.
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Strong ability to anticipate data scalability and reliability constraints and address them proactively.
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Excellent technical leadership, communication, and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders and drive ambitious technical roadmaps.
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Experience operating storage systems on Kubernetes.
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Familiarity with building control planes using Crossplane.
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Experience supporting private, isolated, on-premises, or air-gapped deployments.
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Base salary: $246,000–$339,000 USD, depending on experience, expertise, and other relevant factors.
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Potential performance-based bonus.
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Equity opportunities.
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Generous employee benefits program.
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Remote position based in the United States.
Requirements:
Nice to have: