Principal Data Engineer

About the Role

We are representing a confidential application security organization seeking a Principal Data Engineer to join their team in Belfast. This is a high-impact leadership role where you'll architect and operate a unified data platform that serves multiple product lines, enabling analytics, ML workflows, and AI automation at scale.

Our client is building the next generation of their data infrastructure, and you'll be the technical leader driving cross-product data services from design through production operations.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and build-out of cross-product data services for multiple product lines from one governed data plane
• Define the customer data plane model: canonical customer identifiers, shared dimensions, and consistent facts used across products
• Build and operationalize ingestion patterns for batch, streaming, and event data, with repeatable onboarding for new sources
• Own the operational playbook for data reliability: data contracts, quality checks, lineage, monitoring, and incident response
• Implement and run access methods that make data usable: curated datasets, secure query interfaces, and product-ready data APIs where needed
• Productize customer-facing data products (datasets, metrics, exports, and feeds) with versioning, documentation, and clear ownership
• Design data models that fit both operational systems (RDS) and analytics stores (columnar/OLAP), including performance and cost tuning
• Ensure data products also power ML workflows: trusted training datasets, feature-ready outputs, and consistent definitions for decision-making
• Enable AI automation by delivering reliable, low-latency, governed data products that can be used safely in automated workflows
• Partner closely with product, engineering, and security stakeholders to align data products to roadmap priorities and customer outcomes
• Raise the technical bar through architecture reviews, standards, and mentoring—while staying hands-on in key systems

What We're Looking For

Required:

• Significant experience building and operating production data platforms at scale, including on-call and operational ownership
• Strong SQL skills and strong Python skills, used to build pipelines, services, and automation
• Hands-on experience running cloud systems on AWS and Google Cloud (IaaS level: compute, storage, networking, IAM)
• Practical experience with both operational databases (RDS-style) and analytics stores (columnar/OLAP), including performance tuning
• Strong data modeling ability, including schema evolution, conformed dimensions, and "one source of truth" metric definitions
• Track record of delivering data products that other teams or customers depend on, with clear contracts and reliability expectations
• Ability to make sound engineering tradeoffs across latency, accuracy, cost, and security without creating brittle complexity
• Experience with lakehouse patterns and open table formats, including governance and table maintenance
• Experience with orchestration and streaming systems used in production (batch and real-time), and managing backfills safely
• Familiarity with ML data needs (training/serving splits, feature-ready datasets, evaluation datasets) and AI-adjacent workflows

Preferred:

• Experience building self-service data platforms (catalog, discoverability, access controls) used by multiple teams
• Experience in regulated or security-sensitive environments, including retention, auditing, and data access controls

Work Model:

• Location: Belfast, UK
• Work model: Hybrid (details to be discussed)
• Collaboration hours: Flexible with overlap across UK and US time zones
• Reports to: VP of Data Engineering
• Travel: Minimal

How We Work With You

Our talent team at Get A Job.ai partners with leading technology organizations to connect exceptional candidates with confidential opportunities. When you apply through our platform, a dedicated recruiter will screen your background and discuss the role in detail. If there's a strong match, we'll submit your profile to our client and guide you through their interview process. Please apply only through Get A Job.ai—direct contact with the employer is not part of this process.

Pay

Compensation details will be discussed during the screening process and are competitive for this senior-level role in Belfast.

Get A Job.ai is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, age, disability, sexual orientation, veteran or military service status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.