Principal Engineer Data and AI

Westpac Group; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work

Leave options

Learning & development

Volunteer programs

Diversity & inclusion

Job summary

Westpac Group in Sydney is seeking a Principal Engineer to tackle complex cross‑domain engineering challenges and deliver safer, simpler and more reliable technology across Shared Data and AI, Digital, and Contact Centre platforms. You will combine deep expertise in at least one engineering domain with broad systems thinking to influence multiple squads and reduce risk across services, data and APIs.

You will lead through technical authority, guide important design decisions, validate uncertain

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience solving complex engineering problems across services, platforms or data domains.
• Broad knowledge of distributed systems, integration, data, security and production operations.
• Strong design judgement for APIs, events, and asynchronous workflows.

Responsibilities

• Clarify complex problems and guide key design decisions across squads.
• Prototype high-risk elements to validate feasibility and security.
• Create reusable patterns and boundaries to enable autonomous squad delivery.
• Partner with engineers, product, design, data, architecture, cyber and risk teams to raise production readiness.

Skills

Complex engineering problems

Distributed systems

APIs design

Cloud platforms

Security & risk mindset

Coaching engineers

Clear communication

Tools

Git

CI/CD

Containers

Cloud services

Terraform

Observability

Job description

Create your best future and join Westpac as a Principal Engineer

What’s the role?

Ready to solve complex engineering problems and help teams deliver safer, simpler and more reliable technology? Join Westpac as a Principal Engineer and create technical leverage across Shared Data and AI, Digital, or Contact Centre teams. You will work across one or more squads, focusing your effort where complexity, dependency and risk are greatest.

You will combine deep expertise in one or more engineering domains with broad systems thinking. Depending on the team, your work may span customer-facing digital experiences, APIs and distributed services, data products and platforms, AI-enabled capabilities, colleague tools, contact centre technology, cloud platforms or shared engineering foundations.

You will clarify complex problems, guide important design decisions, validate uncertain assumptions through practical prototyping, and help teams adopt solutions safely. You will create reusable patterns and clear technical boundaries that enable squads to deliver autonomously, rather than becoming a central approval point.

You will lead through technical authority, practical contribution, coaching and influence. You will partner with engineers, product, design, delivery, data, architecture, cyber and risk colleagues to improve engineering quality, production readiness and long-term sustainability.

This is a hybrid role within Westpac Technology. Opportunities may be available across Shared Data and AI, Digital, and Contact Centre teams. Location and working arrangements will be confirmed for each vacancy.

What do I need?

• Demonstrated experience solving complex engineering problems that span multiple services, platforms, products, data domains or squads.
• Deep expertise in at least one relevant engineering domain, supported by broad knowledge of distributed systems, integration, data, security, reliability and production operations.
• Strong design judgement across APIs, events and asynchronous workflows, including contracts, compatibility, data ownership, consistency, resilience, migration and failure handling.
• The ability to move between strategic design and practical validation, including writing or reviewing code, creating prototypes, testing risky assumptions and producing concise technical decisions.
• Experience guiding modern software delivery using practices such as Git, continuous integration and delivery, automated testing, containers, cloud services, infrastructure as code, observability and secure dependency management.
• A strong security, privacy and risk mindset, with the ability to translate material risks and enterprise guardrails into proportionate, usable engineering controls.
• Experience influencing technical direction across teams without relying on formal authority, including coaching senior engineers and creating conditions for others to make sound decisions independently.
• Clear, accessible communication. You can explain complex choices, invite challenge, adapt your approach for different audiences and create shared understanding across technical and non-technical groups.

Experience That May Be Useful

You do not need experience in every area below. We encourage you to apply if your strengths are relevant or transferable and you are interested in learning the domain-specific context.

• Digital engineering, including web or mobile platforms, design systems, accessibility, customer identity, API ecosystems or high-volume customer experiences.
• Data and AI engineering, including data platforms, streaming or batch pipelines, analytics, machine learning, generative AI, responsible AI controls, model operations, evaluation or observability.
• Contact centre technology, including colleague tools, customer interaction platforms, workflow automation, telephony, conversational experiences or integration with customer and service systems.
• Cloud-native engineering using AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, Terraform or equivalent technologies, including networking, identity, secrets and platform engineering.
• Building reusable engineering pathways such as reference implementations, SDKs, templates, paved roads, policy as code or platform capabilities.
• Working in a regulated, high-availability or large enterprise environment where migration safety, resilience, privacy and audit evidence matter.
• Using AI-assisted engineering tools responsibly, including directing and validating generated outputs, protecting sensitive information and retaining human accountability for production outcomes.

How You’ll Make An Impact

• Identify the material technical constraints and decisions across a complex area, not just the most visible symptoms.
• Choose appropriate interaction and data patterns, such as REST, gRPC, events or asynchronous workflows, based on evidence and context rather than preference.
• Prototype or implement the highest-risk elements to validate feasibility, security, operability and migration assumptions.
• Create an adoption path that helps multiple squads move safely from current state to target state while maintaining service continuity.
• Reduce cognitive load and recurring operational toil through reusable patterns, automation, clearer boundaries and improved observability.
• Lift engineering judgement through constructive challenge, design reviews, mentoring, pairing, documentation and incident learning.
• Enable autonomous delivery by keeping decisions close to accountable teams and avoiding unnecessary centralisation or one-size-fits-all solutions.

Why join us?

We’re obsessed with becoming our customers’ number one banking partner for life, and we’re looking for people who want to help us achieve that goal. In return, we’re committed to making Westpac a great place to work. Here are some of the ways we support our people:

• Special offers on banking products and discounts from leading brands, including eligible employee-only mortgage rates.
• Flexible work arrangements and a range of leave options, including Culture, Lifestyle and Wellbeing leave.
• Learning and development opportunities to deepen your craft, broaden your influence and grow your career within the bank.
• Opportunities to support the community through Westpac volunteering initiatives.

We’re committed to creating a supportive and inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from people of all ages, cultural backgrounds, genders, abilities and ways of thinking. We provide additional support for veterans, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and neurodivergent people.

If you need an adjustment or an alternative format at any stage of the recruitment process, please visit our FAQs and how to contact us page and see the “Diversity, sustainability and flexibility” section. You can request an adjustment without explaining personal medical information to the hiring team.