Principal Data Platform Engineer

Role Summary
A full-time Principal Data Platform Engineer is sought to lead the design and development of a new, cloud-based data and AI platform supporting federal background investigation workflows. This senior-level position involves end-to-end architecture ownership, ensuring the platform meets compliance, security, and operational standards. The role offers high ownership in a high-trust environment, working closely with cloud engineering, data science, and security teams to deliver scalable, reliable, and compliant data solutions. 

• Responsibilities

  • Design and establish a comprehensive data and AI platform architecture, including compute, storage, and lakehouse foundation.
  • Automate platform deployment and configuration using infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform and develop CI/CD pipelines for smooth environment promotion.
  • Implement robust data governance, cataloging, lineage tracking, and access controls as integral components of the platform.
  • Build and manage data ingestion, transformation, and pipeline layers to produce analysis-ready, governed data products.
  • Ensure platform design adheres to FedRAMP Moderate, NIST 800-171, and CUI handling requirements, integrating compliance into architecture from the outset.
  • Define artifact validation and promotion processes that facilitate secure and validated deployment workflows.
  • Collaborate with cloud engineering teams across infrastructure and security boundaries to establish clear ownership and standards.
  • Enable data science and machine learning teams with performant tooling and governed data to accelerate model development and deployment.
  • Manage platform’s reliability, performance, and cost efficiency as usage scales, setting engineering standards and documentation practices.

• Qualifications

  • This position requires eligibility for a U.S. Government security clearance. In accordance with federal law, U.S. citizenship is required.
  • Minimum of 8 years’ experience in data engineering or data platform engineering, with demonstrated senior-level ownership of complete platform solutions.
  • Proven track record building data platforms or lakehouses from scratch, including architecture design and implementation.
  • Hands-on experience designing batch and/or streaming data pipelines and SQL transformations on lakehouse or Delta foundation.
  • Strong proficiency in Python and SQL for data transformation and pipeline development.
  • Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) and CI/CD pipeline development for data workloads.
  • Expertise in platform-level data governance, including cataloging, lineage, and access controls.
  • Cloud experience with major providers, preferably Azure; AWS or GCP considered.
  • Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and communication skills.
  • Bachelor''s degree in computer science, software engineering, or a relevant technical field.

Publishing Pay Range:  $75.00 - $78.00 hourly

This is a fully remote role and can be performed from any approved location within the United States.