Principal Data Developer

BlueCat; Toronto; On-site; CAD 160,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Professional Development Budget

Dedicated Wellness Days and Wellness/"

Lifestyle Spending Account

Employee Recognition Program

Job summary

BlueCat is seeking a Data Principal Engineer to lead the design, development, and operation of a large-scale data lake and analytics platform. You will drive architecture decisions, collaborate with application teams, and mentor engineers to deliver scalable, reliable data services across the organization.

Ideal candidates will have 10+ years in distributed data systems, strong ClickHouse and cloud experience, and a track record of improving latency and throughput while ensuring data integrity

Qualifications

• 10+ years of hands-on experience designing and building large-scale distributed data platforms.
• Expertise with OLAP databases, data lakes, and analytics infrastructure.
• Strong leadership and collaboration abilities across cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and operate a large-scale data lake.
• Partner with Applications and Platform teams to define data strategy.
• Build and optimize data pipelines and analytics workloads.
• Implement data protection and low-latency data processing.

Skills

ClickHouse architecture

Python

Golang

C/C++

Distributed data

REST APIs

Cloud AWS

Kubernetes

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Iceberg

Parquet

Delta Lake

DuckDB

Job description

We’re BlueCat—a Great Place to Work for good reason. Our team solves critical network challenges for some of the world’s largest organizations. In simple terms, we manage the systems that keep networks running smoothly, securely, and reliably—the backbone infrastructure that powers digital transformation for enterprises globally. Our Intelligent Network Operations platform delivers and enables AI-driven agentic ops at scale, automating and simplifying how companies manage, secure, and optimize their networks.

But what makes us different is how we work: we believe great work happens in an environment where you’re trusted, heard, and supported. With teams globally, we’re building a workplace culture that values collaboration and integrity as much as innovation. If you’re looking to advance your career with a company that invests in its people, this is it.

Job Description:

The BlueCat Cloud Platform team is dedicated to powering all BlueCat SaaS products. Our mission is to deliver these products on a reliable, fast, globally distributed, and cost-effective enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure. A key aspect of this mission is our scalable data service, which supports the growth of BlueCat’s data-driven products.

We are seeking a highly skilled Data Principal Engineer with strong leadership, communication, and collaboration abilities to join our dynamic team. In this exciting role, you will help us automate a robust and scalable data service used by numerous teams across the company.

Key Responsibilities:

You will be responsible for building our data lake, maintaining our data pipelines / services and facilitating the movement of messages and implementing data analytics jobs. You will work directly with the Application teams and Platform teams to enable growth of the BlueCat data-driven products.

High-Level Design and Architecture

• Design, develop, and operate highly reliable large-scale data lake
• Partner closely with Applications teams to understand requirements and influence the Data strategy by providing expert advice on design and architecture
• Make critical decisions regarding technical directions, scalability, and system performance.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to create innovative solutions.
• Optimize network configurations to ensure low-latency communication and high availability.
• Implement data protection mechanisms to safeguard critical data processed from the edge to the core.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience designing and building large-scale distributed data platforms, with deep expertise in OLAP databases, query engines, data lakes, object storage, distributed file systems, and analytics infrastructure.
• Proven expert-level experience with ClickHouse architecture, performance optimization, cluster design, data modeling, ingestion pipelines, storage engines, replication, partitioning, and large-scale analytical workloads.
• Strong experience building modern data lake architectures around ClickHouse, including integration with open table formats such as Apache Iceberg, Parquet, and Delta Lake.
• Excellent software engineering and coding skills with production experience in Python (including async programming), Golang, and C/C++.
• Deep understanding of high-performance data processing, vectorized query execution, parallel/distributed compute frameworks, and low-latency analytical systems.
• Experience with modern data processing and analytics frameworks such as Pandas, Polars, DuckDB, Dask, Ray, Prefect, Bodo, or equivalent technologies.
• Passion for designing and building scalable, high-quality REST APIs and distributed services, while mentoring other engineers in API and platform design best practices.
• Strong expertise in infrastructure optimization, performance engineering, scalability, reliability, and operational excellence, with the ability to drive measurable improvements in latency, throughput, and availability.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native distributed systems, including Kubernetes, containers, CI/CD, observability, infrastructure automation, and production operations.
• Experience deploying and operating large-scale data platforms in AWS; experience with GCP and Azure is considered a plus.
• Strong understanding of networking and distributed systems fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/S, service discovery, and secure service-to-service communication.
• Demonstrated engineering rigor with a strong focus on software architecture, testing strategies, security, privacy, resiliency, and operational ownership.
• Ability to independently lead architecture, design, development, testing, deployment, and production operations of complex distributed data systems from day one.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across engineering, product, architecture, and executive stakeholders.
• Experience influencing technical direction, mentoring senior engineers, and acting as a technical leader for strategic platform initiatives.
• Highly desirable: Kubernetes certifications such as CKAD, CKA, or equivalent cloud-native platform experience.

This position offers a salary range of 160,000 - 180,000 CAD per year plus participation in a discretionary bonus plan. Final compensation will be based on skills, experience, and qualifications.

The role is for an existing vacancy.

Our comprehensive benefits encompass your health, financial well-being, and overall wellness, and we are committed to providing an exceptional work environment, enriching employee programs, and fostering a remarkable company culture. At our core, we champion values such as transparency, curiosity, respect, and above all, the pursuit of enjoyment.

In addition, we offer a range of appealing perks, including:

• A Professional Development Budget
• Dedicated Wellness Days and Wellness Week
• A Lifestyle Spending Account
• An Employee Recognition Program

BlueCat is an Equal Opportunity Employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. We also take affirmative action to offer employment and advancement opportunities to all applicants, including minorities, women, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities. BlueCat will not discriminate or retaliate against applicants who inquire about, disclose, or discuss their compensation or that of other applicants.