Principal Data Engineer

Our client is the fastest-growing Google-first technology consultancy based in the Philippines, working with global brands including PayPal, Snapchat, and SEGA.

We are looking for a Principal Data Engineer to join our client's Professional Services team.

This is a principal-level, client-facing role responsible for shaping data strategy, architecture, and engineering standards across complex enterprise engagements. You will act as a senior technical authority, guiding customers and delivery teams through high-impact data transformation initiatives.

You will work closely with customers, Google, senior leadership, architects, and engineering teams to solve complex data challenges, influence technical direction, and strengthen the organisation's wider data engineering capability.

Key Responsibilities

Shape Data Strategy and Architecture

• Define enterprise data strategies, target-state architectures, and technical roadmaps.
• Lead the design of complex cloud data platforms across multiple systems and business domains.
• Make and defend architectural decisions involving scalability, security, governance, reliability, performance, and cost.
• Guide customers through modernisation, migration, and data-platform transformation initiatives.

Provide Technical Leadership

• Act as the senior technical authority across high-risk and strategically important engagements.
• Review and challenge proposed architectures, engineering approaches, and technology choices.
• Resolve complex technical issues that span platforms, systems, and delivery teams.
• Ensure solutions align with customer objectives, engineering standards, and long-term strategy.

Advise Enterprise Customers

• Build trusted-adviser relationships with senior technical and business stakeholders.
• Lead discovery workshops, architecture reviews, and executive-level technical discussions.
• Translate complex business challenges into clear data strategies and investment priorities.
• Support major escalations and provide direction during critical delivery or production issues.

Establish Engineering Standards

• Define standards for data architecture, modelling, quality, governance, testing, observability, and delivery.
• Promote reusable patterns, reference architectures, and consistent engineering practices.
• Identify emerging technologies and assess their relevance to customer and business needs.
• Improve technical assurance and delivery quality across the wider data engineering practice.

Grow the Data Engineering Practice

• Mentor Lead, Senior, and developing Data Engineers.
• Support hiring, technical assessment, succession planning, and capability development.
• Contribute to proposals, solution shaping, estimation, and strategic pre-sales activity.
• Represent the organisation through technical writing, presentations, partner engagement, and thought leadership.

Requirements

Experience Required

• 10+ years of experience designing, building, and operating production data engineering solutions.
• At least 5 years of hands-on experience with GCP, AWS, or Azure, with GCP strongly preferred.
• Extensive experience leading the architecture of complex enterprise data platforms.
• Proven experience advising senior customer stakeholders and influencing strategic technical decisions.
• Experience providing technical leadership across multiple engagements or engineering teams.
• Strong track record of mentoring senior engineers and improving organisational capability.

Technical Experience

• Deep expertise in Python, SQL, data pipelines, ETL/ELT, orchestration, and data modelling.
• Strong experience with cloud data platforms, preferably GCP and BigQuery.
• Experience designing distributed, scalable, and highly available data architectures.
• Strong understanding of data warehousing, data lakes, lakehouse patterns, and analytics platforms.
• Experience establishing data-quality, testing, monitoring, lineage, and observability practices.
• Strong knowledge of data governance, security, access controls, privacy, and compliance.
• Experience with Git, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and modern engineering practices.
• Ability to diagnose complex technical issues across interconnected data systems.
• Experience with batch and distributed processing technologies such as Apache Airflow and Spark.
• Understanding of machine learning data workflows and production model dependencies.

Principal Capabilities

• Able to set technical direction across multiple projects, teams, and customer environments.
• Comfortable advising executives, architects, and senior engineering leaders.
• Able to operate effectively where requirements are ambiguous and business risk is high.
• Strong judgement when balancing technical quality, delivery constraints, cost, and commercial priorities.
• Able to challenge assumptions and communicate complex trade-offs clearly.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without relying on direct authority.
• Strong written and verbal English communication.
• Commercial awareness, including experience with solution shaping, estimation, and pre-sales.
• Track record of raising engineering standards and developing senior technical talent.

Desirable Experience

• Extensive production experience with GCP, BigQuery, and the wider Google Cloud data ecosystem.
• Experience within consulting, professional services, or managed services.
• Experience leading major cloud migration or data-transformation programmes.
• Background in regulated or highly complex enterprise environments.
• Experience working directly with Google or another major cloud technology partner.
• Experience supporting machine learning and AI platforms in production.
• Contributions to thought leadership, technical communities, open-source projects, or industry events.
• Experience building or scaling a data engineering practice.

Benefits

• Compensation: Competitive base salary, de minimis allowance, and 13th-month pay.
• Health and Family: Employer-paid HMO for the employee and up to two dependants, plus maternity, paternity, and bereavement leave.
• Time Off and Development: 28 days of annual leave, 15 sick days, birthday leave, ten learning days, and Philippine statutory holidays.
• Work and Recognition: Hybrid setup with two to three office days per week and monthly Bonusly points.

Diversity and Inclusion

Our client is committed to providing an inclusive workplace and a fair, accessible hiring process. Applications are welcomed regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, or neurotype.