Principal Data Engineer

ABB E-mobility; San Giovanni Valdarno; On-site; EUR 35,000 - 43,000; Full time

Job summary

ABB E-mobility is seeking a Principal Data Engineer to lead the evolution of our data platform and scale data capabilities across the organization. You will drive governance, platform architecture, and engineering practices to enable domain teams to build trusted data products and accelerate AI adoption.

You will partner with IT and business stakeholders, own performance and cost of data services, and mentor data communities while delivering federated governance, data contracts, and scalable

Qualifications

• 8+ years in Data Engineering or related leadership roles.
• Expertise in Azure Databricks stack (PySpark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Lakeflow) and Databricks SQL.
• Strong Python and SQL production data pipeline experience.
• Experience with IaC and platform automation (Terraform, CI/CD, DevOps).
• Knowledge of data governance, security and access controls on Azure/Databricks.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve a self-service data platform for domain teams.
• Provide technical leadership across the data community.
• Design and implement federated governance with data contracts, schema evolution, data quality controls, access management and security policies.
• Build accelerators and paved paths, including reusable templates, CI/CD frameworks and developer tooling.
• Own platform performance, reliability and cost optimization.
• Partner with IT and business on enterprise data architecture and integration opportunities.
• Act as hands-on data engineering consultant for teams with limited capabilities.
• Drive AI-native engineering workflows with governance and oversight.

Skills

Azure Databricks

PySpark

Delta Lake

Unity Catalog

Lakeflow

Databricks SQL

Python

SQL

Terraform

CI/CD pipelines

Databricks Asset Bundles

Azure DevOps

Entra ID

APIs integration

Streaming architectures

Data governance

Tools

Terraform

Databricks Asset Bundles

Azure DevOps

Microsoft Entra ID

Grafana

Power BI

SAP Datasphere

SAC

Job description

As Principal Data Engineer, you will lead the evolution of ABB E-mobility’s data platform and play a key role in scaling our data capabilities across the organization. Working at the center of a federated data ecosystem, you will define the technical foundations, governance standards and engineering practices that enable domain teams to build, own and operate trusted data products while accelerating data-driven decision-making and AI adoption across the business.

Your Responsibilities

• Define and evolve our self-service data platform, enabling domain teams to build, deploy and operate data products independently while ensuring scalability, reliability, security and ease of use across the organization.
• Provide technical leadership across the data community, driving architecture decisions that balance domain autonomy with interoperability, consistency and long-term platform sustainability in a Data Mesh environment.
• Design and implement federated governance capabilities, embedding data contracts, schema evolution, data quality controls, access management, privacy requirements and security policies directly into platform processes and tooling.
• Build and maintain engineering accelerators and paved paths, including reusable templates, CI/CD frameworks, infrastructure modules and developer tooling that simplify adoption and promote engineering best practices across teams.
• Own platform performance, reliability and cost optimization, continuously improving operational excellence and ensuring that data services remain scalable, efficient and resilient as adoption grows.
• Partner with IT and business stakeholders on strategic integration initiatives, providing technical guidance on enterprise data architecture and identifying opportunities to leverage the data platform as a middleware and integration layer.
• Act as a hands‑on data engineering consultant, supporting functions with limited technical capabilities by designing and implementing ingestion patterns, pipelines and data solutions while helping build internal expertise.
• Drive the adoption of AI-native engineering workflows, developing frameworks, reusable assets and agentic AI capabilities that support end-to-end data work from ingestion and transformation to analytics and visualization, with appropriate governance and human oversight.

Your Background

• 8+ years of experience in Data Engineering, Data Platform Engineering or related disciplines, including significant technical leadership responsibilities within complex data environments.
• Deep expertise in Azure Databricks, including PySpark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Lakeflow (Declarative Pipelines and Jobs) and Databricks SQL, with a proven ability to architect and scale modern cloud data platforms.
• Strong software engineering skills in Python and SQL, with hands‑on experience designing, developing, optimizing and maintaining production-grade data pipelines and data products.
• Proven experience with Infrastructure as Code and platform automation, including Terraform, Databricks Asset Bundles, CI/CD pipelines and modern developer workflows, ideally within Azure DevOps environments.
• Strong understanding of data governance, security and access management, including hands‑on experience implementing enterprise-grade controls across Azure and Databricks environments using tools such as Microsoft Entra ID.
• Extensive experience with data integration patterns, including batch ingestion, API‑based integrations, streaming architectures and large-scale data processing in distributed environments.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management and influencing skills, with a demonstrated ability to drive alignment across teams, mentor technical communities and lead initiatives through expertise and collaboration rather than formal authority.

Nice to Have

• Experience building and scaling Data Mesh or federated data platforms.
• Familiarity with Azure Data Explorer (ADX), Grafana, Power BI, SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC).
• Experience defining platform standards, developer enablement strategies and community‑driven engineering practices.
• Hands‑on experience integrating AI into engineering workflows, including agentic AI frameworks, coding assistants, automated development processes and AI-enhanced data operations.
• Experience supporting organizations undergoing significant digital, data and business transformation, with a strong passion for innovation, knowledge sharing and technical excellence.

What’s in it for you?

Work with the best specialists in their field, in a diverse environment with unparalleled global reach. Feel inspired by our fast growth. You will have the accountability to own your part in enabling a future of sustainable and efficient mobility. You can also count on a competitive compensation package in line with your capabilities and experience. Diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunities are at the core of what we do. We celebrate different experiences and perspectives, and we aim to empower everyone in the creation of sustainable solutions for people all over the world. Our individual differences make us successful.

Compensation Package

The employment framework is based on the National Collective Labour Agreement (CCNL) for the Metalworking Industry, with an indicative level B3 and a minimum gross annual salary starting from € 39.000,00.

The specific level and compensation package will be defined based on the outcome of the selection process (including experience, skills set, and role fit), in accordance with objective, transparent, and gender‑neutral criteria, in line with pay equity and equal opportunity principles.

The total compensation package will also include a variable bonus linked to individual and company targets.

About ABB E-Mobility

ABB E-mobility is a world leader in EV charging technology and a partner of choice for the world’s biggest electric vehicle OEMs and nationwide EV charging network operators. With a strong R&D pipeline, our robust product portfolio of innovative holistic solutions – from grid to charge point and domestic installations to large fleet depots – means we are actively enabling the future of E-Mobility, not just predicting it.