Principal Data Engineer

Vaco is partnering with a nationally recognized retail organization to hire a Principal Data Engineer who will help shape the future of its Enterprise Data Platform. This is a senior, hands-on individual contributor role focused on building and modernizing the foundational systems that power analytics, machine learning, and AI-driven initiatives across the business.

You will operate at the intersection of architecture and execution. This role is not about managing a team. It is about setting technical direction, building production-grade systems, raising engineering standards, and influencing through expertise. The ideal candidate is deeply technical, opinionated about quality, and comfortable driving consensus among senior engineers and architects.

This role is based in Tempe, Arizona and requires in-office presence 4x per week.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Define and evolve the long-term architecture of the Enterprise Data Platform, aligning technical design with business strategy and domain-oriented data patterns

• Design and operate scalable, resilient backend systems that support distributed analytics, machine learning, and AI workflows

• Build and optimize ELT and ETL pipelines using AWS-native services and modern data tooling

• Implement CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code practices to standardize engineering workflows

• Architect robust APIs that enable self-service data consumption across operations, finance, product, and data science teams

• Establish data quality, observability, lineage, and SLAs as foundational elements of the platform

• Lead adoption of AI-assisted development tools to improve engineering velocity and reduce manual overhead

• Design and productionize ML infrastructure including feature stores, experimentation frameworks, and deployment monitoring

• Develop Retrieval-Augmented Generation and Graph RAG patterns to support LLM-enabled data access

• Author technical RFCs and architecture decision records that influence platform direction

• Enforce engineering standards through code reviews, automated validation, and testing within CI/CD pipelines

• Partner cross-functionally to align on performance, compliance, and scalable feature engineering

Required Experience

• 10 or more years of software and/or data engineering experience, with some experience focused on distributed backend systems or large-scale data infrastructure

• Deep proficiency in Python and SQL with extensive experience building production-grade systems

• Demonstrated experience designing enterprise data platforms with strong understanding of distributed systems concepts including CAP theorem and eventual consistency

• Hands-on expertise with Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, and Power BI in enterprise environments

• Strong knowledge of AWS services including IAM, VPC, S3, Lambda, Glue, SFTP, CloudWatch, and SNS

• Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines using GitLab or similar platforms

• Experience with observability and monitoring frameworks such as DataDog

• Background integrating LLMs into data pipelines, including vector databases and RAG architectures

• Proven ability to influence architectural direction without direct management authority

• Strong written communication skills with experience producing architectural documentation and technical proposals

Nice to Have

• Experience with Snowflake ML or Snowpark

• Familiarity with Amazon SageMaker and ML deployment pipelines

• Experience with Amazon Bedrock or similar managed LLM services

• Exposure to Knowledge Graph implementations or semantic data modeling

• Prior experience in high-growth retail or consumer-facing environments

A Special Note to Applicants

The current volume of automated and AI-generated applications is on the rise. If you have read this posting in full and believe this role genuinely aligns with your experience, we encourage you to apply thoughtfully.

Applicants who include the word “Blue Steel” somewhere in their resume or cover note, or who reach out directly via LinkedIn to the recruiter who appreciates a good Zoolander reference, will help us route submissions more effectively.

Compensation

• Target salary range: $190,000 to $230,000 base, depending on experience

• Comprehensive benefits package available: insurances (medical, dental, vision, supplemental), 4% 401(k) match, employer funded HSA, generous PTO, and a range of ancillary benefits

 

Determining compensation for this role (and others) at Vaco/Highspring depends upon a wide array of factors including but not limited to the individual’s skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, office location and other geographic considerations, as well as other business and organizational needs. With that said, as required by local law in geographies that require salary range disclosure, Vaco/Highspring notes the salary range for the role is noted in this job posting. The individual may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses, and can participate in medical, dental, and vision benefits as well as the company’s 401(k) retirement plan. Additional disclaimer: Unless otherwise noted in the job description, the position Vaco/Highspring is filing for is occupied. Please note, however, that Vaco/Highspring is regularly asked to provide talent to other organizations. By submitting to this position, you are agreeing to be included in our talent pool for future hiring for similarly qualified positions. Submissions to this position are subject to the use of AI to perform preliminary candidate screenings, focused on ensuring minimum job requirements noted in the position are satisfied. Further assessment of candidates beyond this initial phase within Vaco/Highspring will be otherwise assessed by recruiters and hiring managers. Vaco/Highspring does not have knowledge of the tools used by its clients in making final hiring decisions and cannot opine on their use of AI products.