Principle Data Engineering

HARMAN International • Novi, MI

2d • $125,250 - $183,700 • Hybrid

About The Position

As a highly experienced individual contributor, the Principal Data Engineer designs and delivers complex, production-scale data products on HARMAN Automotive’s enterprise data and AI platform. The role provides technical leadership across data engineering initiatives, resolves difficult cross-domain problems, and establishes reusable engineering patterns across the organization. It combines deep Azure Databricks and data engineering expertise with hands-on technical work, mentoring, and collaboration across business and technology teams.

The position partners with architects, Platform Engineering, security, MDM/Data Quality, Analytics, source-system teams, and business domains to ensure data products meet enterprise standards. It also contributes to technical planning and estimation, evaluates new data engineering capabilities, and helps domain teams work effectively within enterprise guardrails.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering, software engineering, data architecture, data platforms, or related technical roles.
• Deep experience designing and delivering production data solutions using Python, SQL, Spark/PySpark, and distributed data processing technologies.
• Strong experience with Azure Databricks or a comparable enterprise lakehouse platform.
• Strong understanding of lakehouse architecture, Delta Lake, data modeling, batch and streaming architectures, orchestration, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Demonstrated experience leading technical delivery of complex data engineering initiatives across multiple systems or teams.
• Strong experience with CI/CD, Git-based development, automated testing, deployment automation, and software engineering practices applied to data.
• Strong understanding of performance optimization, production support, observability, resiliency, and data pipeline reliability.
• Working knowledge of data governance, security, access management, metadata, lineage, and data quality.
• Ability to influence technical decisions, mentor engineers, and communicate complex concepts clearly to technical and business stakeholders.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Ability to work within the hybrid arrangement established for the position.
• Ability to collaborate with global teams across North America, Europe, and India, including flexibility in working hours when needed.
• Willingness to travel occasionally when required.

Nice To Haves

• Databricks professional-level certification or substantial enterprise Databricks experience.
• Deep experience with Unity Catalog, Databricks Workflows, Delta Lake optimization, Lakeflow, MLflow, or Databricks Asset Bundles.
• Experience designing reusable engineering frameworks or standards used by multiple development teams.
• Experience with Kafka, CDC, Azure Data Factory, dbt, APIs, event-driven architectures, or high-volume streaming data.
• Experience with data mesh, data products, or federated hub-and-spoke operating models.
• Experience integrating data for analytics, AI/ML, and enterprise data-sharing use cases.
• Experience with SAP, manufacturing, supply chain, finance, HR, or other complex enterprise data environments.
• Experience mentoring engineers and providing technical leadership across globally distributed teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and delivery of complex, cross-domain data products using Azure Databricks and the enterprise data platform.
• Design scalable data pipelines, transformation architectures, data models, and integration patterns for high-value business use cases.
• Make technical decisions and resolve complex engineering, performance, data quality, and integration challenges.
• Lead engineers in applying software and data engineering practices, including CI/CD, automated testing, observability, code review, and deployment automation.
• Define and improve reusable data engineering patterns, templates, and golden paths with Platform Engineering.
• Provide technical guidance and mentoring to Data Engineers while remaining hands-on with critical engineering work.
• Partner with architects, Platform Engineering, security, MDM/Data Quality, Analytics, and domain teams to meet enterprise standards.
• Guide implementation of data contracts, quality controls, lineage, metadata, security, and operational requirements in data products.
• Lead technical discussions with source-system teams and business domains to resolve data dependencies and interoperability issues.
• Evaluate new Databricks and data engineering capabilities and recommend improvements to delivery, scalability, reliability, or cost.
• Support less mature domain teams and help mature teams work independently within enterprise guardrails.
• Contribute to technical planning and estimation for major data-product initiatives, identifying engineering risks and dependencies early.

Benefits

• Flexible work environment, allowing full-time remote work globally for positions that can be performed outside a HARMAN or customer location.
• Employee discounts on JBL, HARMAN Kardon, AKG, and other products.
• Training opportunities through HARMAN University.
• Competitive wellness benefits.
• Tuition reimbursement.
• “Be Brilliant” employee recognition and rewards program.
• Inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters professional and personal development.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior