Principal Data Engineer - H&B Data & Analytics Platform

WTW • Austin, TX

1d

About The Position

The Principal Data Engineer is a senior, hands‑on technical leader responsible for designing, building, and evolving scalable, reliable, and cost‑efficient data and analytic platforms that power analytics, reporting, and advanced AI/predictive use cases. This role sets engineering standards, drives platform modernization, and mentors engineering teams while partnering closely with architecture, analytics, product, and governance stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

• Databricks & Lakehouse Focus (Strongly Preferred)

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and evolution of enterprise‑scale data platforms, including ingestion, transformation, storage, and consumption layers
• Define and enforce data engineering standards, patterns, and best practices (e.g., pipeline design, testing, CI/CD, observability)
• Serve as a technical authority on data architecture decisions, trade‑offs, and platform strategy
• Design, build, and optimize high‑performance batch and streaming data pipelines
• Improve reliability, performance, scalability, and cost efficiency of existing data assets
• Implement reusable frameworks and reference architectures to accelerate delivery across teams
• Design and operate Databricks‑based lakehouse solutions using Delta Lake, Spark, and notebooks/jobs
• Establish best practices for Databricks workspace architecture, security, performance tuning, and cost management
• Lead or support migrations to Databricks and modernization of legacy data pipelines
• Partner with data governance and security teams to embed data quality checks, metadata, lineage, and access controls into pipelines
• Ensure platforms support regulatory, compliance, and enterprise risk requirements
• Work closely with data architects, analytic engineers, data scientists, product owners, and business stakeholders
• Translate business and analytic requirements into scalable technical solutions
• Influence roadmaps by tying platform investments to measurable business outcomes
• Mentor senior and mid‑level engineers; raise the overall technical bar of the team
• Lead by example through hands‑on contribution to critical pipelines and platform components

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees