Principal Data Engineer

Realtor.com Careers•Austin, TX

23h•Hybrid

About The Position

Realtor.com® is a leading online real estate platform with over 25 years of experience, connecting users with trusted insights and expert guidance to find their perfect home. The company aims to empower people to find their way home by breaking barriers, making connections, and building confidence. This exciting opportunity is for a motivated and energetic Principal Data Engineer to shape and lead the technical strategy, driving growth and innovation within the Data community. The role requires a hands-on technical leader with deep experience in building modern real-time data platforms, prioritizing data governance, security, compliance, and efficient data management for optimal performance and cost. The Principal Data Engineer will serve as a technical leader across multiple squads, driving a roadmap that aligns data strategy with business needs and ensuring teams work towards their OKRs. Initial focus will be on maturing the data pipeline's paved path and ensuring best-in-class tooling. As the role evolves, responsibilities will include designing advanced data architectures, collaborating with stakeholders to understand data needs, and ensuring a scalable, future-ready data infrastructure. The individual will make strategic recommendations and drive technical decision-making across empowered teams, fostering a collaborative and innovative environment, mentoring engineers, and contributing to engineering initiatives to shape the future of the data platform.

Requirements

Hands-on technical leadership experience.
Deep experience in building modern real-time data platforms that prioritize data governance, security, compliance, and efficient data management for optimal performance and cost.
Proven track record of successfully delivering on data strategies and roadmaps.
Expert knowledge of SQL, data structures, algorithms, and schema design best practices.
12+ years of architectural and design experience.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Engineering or a related field.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree preferred.

Responsibilities

Shape and lead the technical strategy for the Data community, driving growth and innovation.
Serve as a technical leader across multiple squads, driving a roadmap that aligns data strategy with business needs.
Ensure teams consistently work towards their OKRs and scale technology to meet evolving demands.
Mature the data pipeline’s paved path, ensuring best-in-class tooling.
Design advanced data architectures and ensure a scalable, future-ready data infrastructure.
Make strategic recommendations and drive critical technical decisions across empowered teams, influencing technical direction and execution.
Foster a collaborative and innovative environment, focusing on excellence in both people and products.
Mentor talented engineers, cultivate continuous improvement, and contribute to engineering initiatives.
Own the end-to-end architecture of the entire data landscape.
Design and implement enterprise-grade data models and architectures.
Act as a strategic partner to the business, finding gaps and proposing proactive, reasonable solutions.
Make critical technical decisions across multiple squads, ensuring data governance, security, and real-time capabilities are future-proofed for enterprise scale.
Champion data best practices.
Develop and design modern, scalable enterprise Data and AI architectures and models, including ingestion strategies.
Balance existing systems with innovative solutions.
Establish robust data governance, security, and compliance policies.
Optimize data for efficient management, analysis, and significant cost control.
Demonstrate strong learning agility and leadership in data cost initiatives.
Drive the development and execution of a data roadmap, directly aligning data initiatives with core business objectives.
Collaborate effectively with stakeholders to gain a deep understanding of their data needs.
Dive into complex technical details to understand challenges, debug issues, and provide expert guidance to engineers.