Job Description

We are seeking a highly skilled Principal Software Engineer – Data Engineering to design, develop, and optimize scalable data platforms and pipelines. The ideal candidate will have robust expertise in Python, SQL, Snowflake (or equivalent cloud data warehouse), cloud technologies, CI/CD practices, and AI-enabled data solutions. This role requires technical leadership, architecture ownership, mentoring capabilities, and hands-on engineering excellence.

Key Responsibilities

Data Engineering & Platform Development
Design and implement scalable, reliable, and secure data pipelines.
Develop ETL/ELT solutions for processing large-scale structured and unstructured datasets.
Build data ingestion frameworks supporting batch and near real-time processing.
Design and optimize data models for analytics, reporting, and machine learning workloads.
Ensure high data quality, governance, observability, and reliability across data platforms.

Cloud & Data Warehouse
Architect and maintain cloud-native data solutions on AWS or Azure or GCP.
Develop and optimize solutions using Snowflake or equivalent cloud data warehouse technologies.
Implement data lake and lakehouse architectures.
Optimize storage costs, compute utilization, and query performance.





Software Engineering Excellence
Develop production-grade applications and frameworks using Python.
Perform code reviews and establish engineering best practices.
Drive architectural decisions and technology selection.
Ensure adherence to security, scalability, and reliability standards.

CI/CD & DevOps
Design and implement CI/CD pipelines for data and application deployments.
Automate build, test, deployment, and monitoring processes.
Manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, CloudFormation, or similar tools.
Improve deployment reliability and observability.

AI & Advanced Analytics
Enable AI/ML workflows by building robust feature and training data pipelines.
Work with AI teams to operationalize machine learning models.
Explore Generative AI, LLM integrations, vector databases, and AI-driven automation solutions.
Support model monitoring, governance, and deployment pipelines.

Leadership & Mentoring
Provide technical leadership across multiple engineering teams.
Mentor senior engineers and establish engineering standards.
Collaborate with architects, product managers, and business stakeholders.
Drive innovation and strategic technology initiatives.

📌 Principal Software Engineer Chennai
🏢 Nielseniq
📍 Chennai