Principal Data Engineer

Xplore Inc.; Markham; On-site; CAD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Xplore Inc. is seeking an experienced Data Engineering Leader to define the end-to-end data platform including ingestion, storage, modeling, governance, and observability. You will unify data across on-prem, CRM, and other sources, embedding compliance and cataloging by design.

The role requires 10+ years in data engineering with 4+ years leading platform initiatives, strong Spark/cloud experience, and a passion for building scalable data products with a security-first mindset.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of data engineering experience with 4+ years in leading platform or team initiatives.
• Hands-on with data lakehouse architectures, distributed compute, and cloud-native storage.
• Strong experience with data cataloging, lineage, governance at scale.
• Proficiency in Python/Scala, advanced SQL, and ELT performance tuning.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture and delivery of an enterprise lakehouse platform (bronze/silver/gold).
• Ingest data from on-prem and cloud systems, batch and streaming workloads.
• Implement data governance, access control, privacy-by-design, and compliance.
• Establish data lineage, cataloging, and data contracts with domain owners.
• Lead MLOps-friendly data provisioning and collaboration with analytics teams.
• Mentor data engineers and promote secure, reproducible engineering practices.

Skills

Data engineering

Leadership

Python/Scala

SQL performance

CI/CD

Data governance

Education

Advanced degree

Tools

Spark

Cloud storage

Metadata tooling

ETL tooling

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Xplore Inc. is Canada’s fibre, 5G and satellite broadband company for rural living. Xplore is committed to the relentless pursuit of an improved broadband experience for all Canadians. Xplore is building a world-class fibre optic and 5G wireless network to enable innovative broadband services for better every day rural living, for today and future generations.

This role is for an experienced technical leader to lead the technical roadmap and upskill the Xplore data engineering team. You will define the end-to-end data platform (ingestion, storage, modeling, governance, quality, observability), unify data currently siloed across on-prem network/OSS/BSS systems, Salesforce CRM, and other business sources, and embed compliance, lineage, and cataloging by design.

Key responsibilities include:

• Own the architecture and delivery of a scalable enterprise lakehouse platform following the medallion pattern (bronze/silver/gold layers) to support BI, data science, and AI use cases.
• Stand up robust ingestion pipelines from on-prem and cloud systems (e.g., SQL Server/Oracle, network telemetry/OSS, Salesforce via APIs/CDC), enabling both batch and streaming workloads.
• Implement governance, security, and compliance controls end-to-end: role-based and attribute-based access control, row/column-level security, secrets and key management, data retention, and privacy-by-design aligned to Canadian regulations (e.g., PIPEDA/CPPA, Quebec Law 25) and other relevant standards.
• Establish enterprise data lineage and cataloging using modern metadata management and data discovery tools; curate business glossaries and data contracts with domain owners.
• Define data quality SLAs/SLOs and automated validation at ingestion and transformation stages; implement observability and alerting for freshness, volume, and schema drift.
• Partner with analytics, data science, and AI/ML teams to provision clean, well documented datasets and features, and enable MLOps-friendly patterns.
• Lead engineering best practices: CI/CD, infrastructure as code, cost governance, performance tuning, and FinOps reporting (tracking and optimizing cloud/data platform spend).
• Create reference architectures, standards, and reusable frameworks; mentor data engineers and champion engineering excellence and security-first development.
• Collaborate across information security, privacy, legal, and compliance domains to translate policies into technical controls, and to support audits and evidence collection.
• Engage with business stakeholders to prioritize the roadmap, translate use cases into data products, and measure value delivered.
• Build, mentor, and inspire a high-performing data engineering team; establish best practices for reproducibility, testing, and documentation

The ideal candidate will possess:

• 10+ years of data engineering experience, including 4+ years leading platform or team-level initiatives.
• Expert hands-on skills with modern data lakehouse and distributed compute platforms (e.g., Spark-based ecosystems, cloud-native storage, streaming frameworks).
• Strong experience with enterprise data cataloging, lineage, and governance at scale.
• Proficiency in Python and/or Scala, advanced SQL, and performance tuning for large-scale ELT.
• Practical knowledge of ingestion from Salesforce, on-prem RDBMS, files/telemetry, and APIs; experience bridging on-prem systems with cloud platforms.
• Solid grasp of security and privacy controls (RBAC, encryption, tokenization/masking), and familiarity with Canadian privacy regimes (PIPEDA/CPPA, Law 25) and other relevant standards.
• Experience with CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automated testing frameworks, and data observability solutions.
• Comfort collaborating across domains (Network, Care, Marketing, Finance, Sales) and translating business needs into scalable data products.
• Advanced academic background in a quantitative discipline such as Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.
• Excellent communication skills, a coaching mindset, and the ability to set platform vision and deliver iteratively.

Condition of Employment:

As a condition of employment and in order to comply with industry related data security standards, this position is subject to the successful completion of a Criminal Background Check. Details will be supplied to applicants as they move through the selection process.

Xplore is committed to creating an accessible environment and will accommodate disabilities during the selection process. Please let your recruiter know during the selection process of any accommodation needs.