Principal Software Engineer

Principal Software Engineer – Data Platform

San Francisco, CA (Remote OK – US Only)

Base Salary: $230K–$280K + Equity

Ready to architect a world-class data platform from the ground up?

A fast-growing, product-driven tech company is hiring a Principal Software Engineer to take charge of building a modern, cloud-native data platform from scratch. If you're passionate about solving large-scale data challenges and building infrastructure that supports real-time analytics and AI/ML, this could be your next big move.

What’s in it for you?

• Be a founding member of a growing Data Platform team
• Lead the design and architecture of the entire platform
• Work on massive-scale data and real-time streaming pipelines
• Use state-of-the-art technologies (Kafka, Iceberg, ClickHouse, Snowflake, etc.)
• Help shape the platform that fuels AI, ML, and analytics company-wide

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Build a next-generation data platform for both internal and product-facing needs
• Design systems that handle both batch and real-time data with scalability, resilience, and speed
• Lead efforts around data modeling, ingestion, warehousing, and governance
• Set engineering best practices and mentor senior team members
• Ensure technical decisions support the company’s long-term goals
• Optimize infrastructure for cost-efficiency, performance, and reliability in a cloud-first environment

Who You Are:

• 8+ years of experience in data infrastructure or platform engineering
• 5+ years operating at a Principal Engineer (or equivalent) level
• Deep expertise with Kafka and real-time streaming architectures
• Hands-on experience with tools like ClickHouse, Apache Iceberg, and Snowflake
• Strong background in cloud-based systems (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• Experience building secure, compliant, and governed data platforms
• Proven success scaling systems to handle petabytes of data
• Strong communicator and collaborative leader
• Bonus: Experience with AI/ML infrastructure or preparing for hypergrowth/IPO readiness