# Principal Software/Data Engineer

**Company:** [PointClickCare](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/pointclickcare)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Data Engineering
**Salary:** $183k – $204k/yr
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Apache Kafka, Flink, Spark Streaming, AWS, Azure, GCP, Databricks, dbt, Great Expectations, Apache Hudi
**Posted:** 2025-11-24

> Leads design and implementation of scalable streaming data pipelines using Kafka, Flink, and Spark Streaming. Mentors engineers, ensures data quality and observability, with 10+ years experience including 4+ in real-time systems.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Lead and guide the design and implementation of scalable streaming data pipelines
- Engineer and optimize real-time data solutions using frameworks like Apache Kafka, Flink, Spark Streaming
- Collaborate cross-functionally with product, analytics, and AI teams to ensure data is a strategic asset
- Advance ongoing modernization efforts, deepening adoption of event-driven architectures and cloud-native technologies
- Drive adoption of best practices in data governance, observability, and performance tuning for streaming workloads
- Embed data quality in processing pipelines by defining schema contracts, implementing transformation tests and data assertions, enforcing backward-compatible schema evolution, and automating checks for freshness, completeness, and accuracy
- Establish robust observability for data pipelines by implementing metrics, logging, and distributed tracing for streaming jobs, defining SLAs and SLOs for latency and throughput, and integrating alerting and dashboards
- Foster a culture of quality through peer reviews, providing constructive feedback and seeking input on your own work

## Requirements
- Principal Data Engineer with at least 10 years of professional experience in software or data engineering, including a minimum of 4 years focused on streaming and real-time data systems
- Proven experience driving technical direction and mentoring engineers while delivering complex, high-scale solutions as a hands-on contributor
- Deep expertise in streaming and real-time data technologies, including frameworks such as **Apache Kafka**, **Flink**, and **Spark Streaming**
- Strong understanding of event-driven architectures and distributed systems, with hands-on experience implementing resilient, low-latency pipelines
- Practical experience with cloud platforms (**AWS**, **Azure**, or **GCP**) and containerized deployments for data workloads
- Fluency in data quality practices and CI/CD integration, including schema management, automated testing, and validation frameworks (e.g., **dbt**, **Great Expectations**)
- Operational excellence in observability, with experience implementing metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting for data pipelines using modern tools
- Solid foundation in data governance and performance optimization, ensuring reliability and scalability across batch and streaming environments
- Experience with Lakehouse architectures and related technologies, including **Databricks**, **Azure ADLS Gen2**, and **Apache Hudi**
- Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders and evangelize modern data practices

## Nice-to-Haves
- Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset
- Ability to learn quickly and adapt to new technologies
- Self-starter who thrives with minimal supervision and collaborates effectively
- Excellent organizational and critical-thinking skills
- Comfortable leveraging AI tools to accelerate development

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**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/3ec6f9e7-050f-4de1-8f9c-4c062714bf3d