Principal, Data Platforms

Position Overview 

We are seeking an exceptional Principal, Data Platforms to establish and lead our data engineering function from the ground up. This role reports to the Head of Data Engineering and is responsible for the complete design, development, and implementation of a world-class modern data platform. You will drive the strategic evolution of our data infrastructure, enabling both structured and unstructured data workflows at scale. You will spearhead the upgrade and modernization of our existing Azure Data Factory pipelines to next-generation orchestration tools, implement efficient data ingress and egress patterns, establish AI/LLM-native data capabilities through advanced vector indexing and streaming architectures, and build a strong data engineering organization from the ground up. You will collaborate closely with cloud engineering, network engineering, and data products teams to architect a unified data lake and comprehensive data governance framework that supports diverse analytical and operational needs across our portfolio. 

Key Responsibilities 

Organization Building & Team Leadership 

• Build and scale the data engineering organization from inception, defining team structure, roles, and responsibilities across the function 

• Establish engineering culture emphasizing technical excellence, collaboration, ownership, and continuous learning 

• Recruit, mentor, and develop high-performing data engineers with expertise in modern data platforms, ETL/ELT, orchestration, streaming, and vector databases 

• Partner with Human Resources on recruitment strategy, hiring processes, and organizational scaling as the firm grows 

Strategic Vision & Roadmap 

• Establish a comprehensive, multi-year data engineering strategy aligned with firm objectives 

• Define technical roadmaps for data infrastructure, platform capabilities, and technology adoption 

• Establish governance frameworks for data engineering decisions, standards, and best practices 

• Lead technology evaluation and vendor selection processes with clear ROI and strategic fit 

Platform Architecture & Modernization 

• Design and architect a modern, scalable data platform leveraging Databricks on Azure that supports both structured and unstructured data at petabyte scale 

• Lead the modernization of legacy Azure Data Factory (ADF) pipelines to production-grade orchestration platforms such as Prefect, or Apache Airflow 

• Develop a comprehensive upgrade and migration roadmap for ETL/ELT pipelines, ensuring zero data loss, minimal downtime, and improved observability 

• Lead the implementation of serverless and Zero ETL patterns to eliminate infrastructure management overhead and reduce time-to-insight 

• Own cost optimization initiatives across the data platform, balancing performance, reliability, and operational efficiency 

ETL/ELT & Orchestration Excellence 

• Build deep expertise in Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) principles and modern workflow orchestration patterns for reliable, scalable pipeline management 

• Evaluate, select, and implement best-in-class orchestration tools (Prefect, Airflow) that provide superior visibility, error handling, and data lineage tracking 

• Establish patterns for dynamic DAG generation, conditional execution, and advanced error recovery strategies 

• Design and enforce data quality frameworks within orchestration tools to catch issues at the pipeline level 

• Create monitoring, alerting, and observability solutions for 100%+ visibility into pipeline health and data freshness 

Data Movement & Integration Patterns 

• Architect efficient data ingress patterns supporting high-volume, real-time, and batch data inflows from diverse sources (APIs, databases, cloud services, SaaS platforms) 

• Design sophisticated data egress patterns enabling secure, efficient data distribution to downstream systems, analytics tools, and external stakeholders 

• Implement change data capture (CDC) patterns and incremental processing strategies to optimize resource usage and reduce latency 

• Establish governance frameworks for data movement including encryption, authentication, and audit trails 

Streaming & Real-Time Data Capabilities 

• Evaluate and implement streaming platforms (Kafka, Event Hubs, Kinesis) to support real-time analytics and operational use cases 

• Design event-driven architectures that enable low-latency decision-making and automated workflows 

• Build streaming ingestion pipelines that efficiently funnel data into the lakehouse while maintaining data quality and lineage 

AI & LLM-Native Data Infrastructure 

• Design and build vector database infrastructure to support LLM applications, including efficient indexing, similarity search, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows 

• Establish patterns for embedding generation, vector storage optimization, and integration with vector databases 

• Build data pipelines that prepare unstructured data (documents, images, audio) for embedding and LLM consumption 

• Create governance and provenance tracking for embeddings and vector data to ensure transparency and compliance 

Data Lake & Catalog Implementation 

• Lead the development and governance of a unified data lake, establishing data quality standards, lineage tracking, and compliance frameworks 

• Support implementation of a modern data catalog solution that enables data discovery, governance, and self-service analytics across the enterprise 

• Establish data engineering best practices, testing frameworks, production deployment pipelines, and operational standards 

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Management 

• Partner with cloud engineering, and infrastructure teams to define overall data and technology strategy 

• Work closely with cloud engineering teams to optimize Azure cloud utilization, cost efficiency, security, and operational resilience 

• Collaborate with network engineering to design network architecture supporting high-throughput data flows, low-latency access patterns, and hybrid connectivity 

• Partner with data products leadership to translate business requirements into technical implementations for analytics, AI/ML, and real-time intelligence 

• Communicate data engineering strategy and priorities to executive leadership and the broader organization 

Required Qualifications 

Technical Expertise 

• Advanced proficiency with Databricks, including Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and Apache Spark optimization 

• Deep expertise in Microsoft Azure, including Azure Data Factory, Synapse Analytics, Azure Storage (Data Lake Storage Gen2), Azure Event Hubs, and Azure compute services 

• Production experience migrating and modernizing Azure Data Factory pipelines to modern orchestration platforms 

• Expert-level understanding of Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), workflow orchestration concepts, and production DAG-based platforms 

• Deep hands-on experience with Prefect, Apache Airflow, or similar orchestration tools in enterprise environments 

• Strong experience designing data ingress and egress patterns for diverse data sources and consumers 

• Demonstrated expertise in streaming architectures (Kafka, Event Hubs, Kinesis) and event-driven data processing 

• Experience building and optimizing vector databases and similarity search solutions for LLM/AI applications 

• Strong understanding of embedding generation, vector indexing strategies, and RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines 

• Proficiency with data engineering technologies: Python, SQL, Scala, and hands-on experience with modern data transformation tools 

• Experience with data governance, metadata management, and data catalog solutions 

Leadership & Organization Building 

• 10+ years of data engineering experience, with at least 5+ years in senior leadership or principal technical roles 

• Proven track record building and scaling data engineering organizations from the ground up, developing talent and establishing technical culture 

• Experience successfully leading enterprise platform migrations and large-scale modernization initiatives 

• Demonstrated ability to define strategic vision, communicate priorities to executive stakeholders, and execute on multi-year roadmaps 

• Strong track record designing and implementing enterprise-scale data platforms supporting 100+ users and petabyte-scale datasets 

• Demonstrated ability to partner effectively across infrastructure, security, networking, product, and executive teams 

• Excellent communication skills; ability to explain complex technical concepts to both engineers and non-technical executives 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Hands-on experience building and operating AI/ML platforms and the data engineering required to support machine learning workflows 

• Expertise in change data capture (CDC) patterns and incremental processing strategies 

• Experience with cost optimization strategies for cloud data platforms 

• Background in data quality frameworks, testing strategies, and observability for data pipelines 

• Experience with unstructured data processing, computer vision, or natural language processing pipelines