Principal Data Engineer (NV1 contract)

Lookahead; City of Melbourne; On-site; AUD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hours

Contract role in Canberra

Modern stack

Job summary

Lookahead seeks a senior data engineer to join a small Australian team under a US-based tech company focused on AI-driven mapping of global supply chains. You will build and customise data pipelines for Australian clients, bringing data into the platform, and ensuring reliability, security, and cost efficiency.

The role blends technical leadership with hands-on work in Python, SQL, Databricks, AWS and Azure, with an emphasis on governance and security.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of data engineering with end-to-end ownership of large pipelines.
• Current NV1 security clearance is required.
• Experience translating client requirements into architecture, ideally with government projects.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and delivery of data pipelines for Australian clients in a small team.
• Be the technical voice in client meetings and hands-on in Python, SQL, and cloud tooling.
• Drive reliable, secure, and cost-efficient data architectures and governance.

Skills

Data engineering

Cloud engineering

Client leadership

Mentoring

Security mindset

Tools

AWS

Azure

Databricks

OpenSearch

Postgres

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Datadog

Job description

The role

You'll be part of a small Australian team within a US based tech company that uses AI to map global supply chains. You'll build and customise data pipelines for Australian clients, bring their data into the platform, and keep those pipelines reliable, secure and cost effective. The best part about this role is the mix: you're the technical expert in client meetings, and you're still hands‑on, working mainly with Python, SQL, Databricks and AWS, with some Azure.

About you

• 8+ years in data engineering, with end‑to‑end ownership of large‑scale pipelines, from design through to running them in production
• A current NV1 clearance
• Experience as the lead technical voice with clients, ideally government, translating their requirements into architecture
• Hands‑on cloud engineering in AWS and/or Azure, building solutions, not just administering them
• Security minded, with experience in data governance and supporting security reviews or accreditation (IRAP or Essential Eight a plus)
• You set technical direction, mentor others, and can clearly explain your own impact versus the team's
• Familiarity with graph databases, entity resolution, or trade and supply chain data a plus

The offer

• Contract role based in Canberra
• Join a high performing team working on a platform with global impact
• Flexible hours built around client needs, not a rigid 9 to 5
• Modern stack and tooling: Python, SQL, Databricks, OpenSearch, Postgres, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Datadog, AWS and Azure