The Position

We are seeking a Principal Data Engineer to help define and evolve our enterprise data platform strategy, with Databricks serving as the foundation for analytics, AI, machine learning, governance, and data product development across the organization.

This role serves as a strategic technical leader for APFM's data platform, governance, and data product ecosystem. You will help define how data is managed, governed, discovered, and consumed across the organization, enabling trusted self-service analytics, scalable AI capabilities, and data-driven decision making.

Working closely with Engineering, Analytics, AI/ML, Product, and business stakeholders, you will help evolve our federated data operating model while ensuring the platform remains secure, reliable, and easy to use.

Who You Are

You are a technical leader who combines deep expertise in modern data platforms with a pragmatic approach to solving complex business problems. You build trust through technical excellence, sound judgment, and a collaborative approach to leadership.

You influence technical direction across teams, align stakeholders around a shared vision, and help elevate engineering practices throughout the organization.

You understand that successful analytics and AI initiatives are built on strong data foundations and effective governance.

What You Will Do

• Define and evolve the technical vision and roadmap for APFM's Databricks platform and broader data ecosystem.
• Drive the evolution of APFM's federated data operating model, balancing domain ownership with enterprise governance and standards.
• Partner with Analytics Engineering and business stakeholders to evolve the semantic layer, ensuring business definitions, metrics, and dimensions remain consistent, discoverable, and trusted.
• Establish standards for metadata management, lineage, discoverability, stewardship, and data quality across the organization.
• Drive development of reusable data products and shared platform capabilities that enable self-service analytics at scale.
• Lead adoption and governance of Databricks capabilities including Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Workflows, AI/BI Genie, MLflow, Vector Search, and related platform services.
• Partner closely with AI and Machine Learning teams to establish scalable operational patterns for model development, deployment, monitoring, and governance.
• Guide technical decision-making across multiple teams and domains, helping align platform investments with business outcomes.
• Mentor engineers across the organization and help elevate technical capabilities and engineering excellence.

Required Skills & Competencies

• 10+ years of experience in data engineering, data platform architecture, governance, or related disciplines.
• Deep expertise designing and operating enterprise-scale Databricks Lakehouse platforms.
• Extensive experience with Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Databricks Workflows, and platform governance capabilities.
• Strong proficiency in SQL, Python, and PySpark, with experience building and optimizing data processing workloads on Databricks.
• Experience designing and supporting semantic layers, metrics governance, and self-service analytics capabilities.
• Strong understanding of governance, metadata management, lineage, observability, security, and reliability engineering principles.

Compensation:

• Base Salary: $170,000 to $195,000 + 30% Bonus
• Benefits:
  
  • 401(k) plus match
  • Dental insurance
  • Health insurance
  • Vision Insurance
  • Paid Time Off

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