Principal Data Engineer (Amsterdam)

AND Digital Nederland; Rotterdam; On-site; EUR 75,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading digital transformation company in the Netherlands is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive technical capabilities within the team. You will be responsible for mentoring developers, providing technical guidance on projects, and ensuring technology solutions meet client needs. The ideal candidate must have extensive experience in Python, advanced SQL, and proficiency in Dutch. This role offers opportunities to shape the culture and technical direction within an inclusive environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in a technical leadership role.
• Ability to lead and mentor junior and senior developers.
• Experience in cloud-native data platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead the engineering and development thinking for your club.
• Provide technical oversight for challenging engineering tasks.
• Collaborate with the Consulting team to establish tech propositions.

Skills

Python for data engineering and pipeline development

Advanced SQL for structured data querying

Proficiency in Dutch Speaking

Tools

Apache Spark

AWS ecosystem

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Introduction

At AND, we accelerate the development of digital capabilities. In practice, that means helping ambitious leaders and organisations build the teams, products, processes and even operational structures they need to close the digital skills gap within their organisation today, so that they thrive tomorrow.

Clients rely on our experience, agility and craft skills across tech and business strategy, software development and product management to address some of the toughest challenges facing their businesses.

We bring aboard thinkers, tinkerers, passionate software craftspeople and inspiring technologists to help us solve these challenges. Together, we’re united by a sense of pragmatism, purpose and a deeply-held belief that digital products and technology alone won’t transform a business or save the world: it’s the people that count.

About You

As a Principal Engineer you will spend the majority of your time helping build our technical capabilities, growing our technologists and influencing technical direction, both within AND and for our clients. You will need to be able to:

• Be initially 100% billable and hands‑on while the Club grows; as we mature this might be less and become a more consulting and BD role to help grow clients and fix failing projects.
• Help with winning new clients by solving their technology problems and coming up with compelling, pragmatic solutions.
• Lead the engineering and development thinking for your club, ensuring alignment with the Club Executive’s strategy, overarching business strategy, and client needs.
• Guide and support the improvement of technical skills for the junior to senior developers in your Club during internal projects between client assignments.
• Define coding standards and ensure they are followed during client assignments.
• Provide technical oversight for client work on the Club’s most challenging engineering activities, working alongside the Club’s Product Developers and Technical Leads.
• Enable an inclusive and diverse technology culture in your Club and support these values on our client engagements, including building this culture onsite directly with clients and their incumbent technologists.
• Support the club in setting up engagements for success, ensuring technical direction and choices are appropriate for clients’ needs, providing technical oversight during discovery and supporting the project resourcing during the discovery phase.
• Collaborate with the Technologists of the Consulting team to establish AND’s tech proposition and develop Thought Leadership.
• Proficiency in Dutch Speaking.

Core Programming & Data Engineering

• Python for data engineering and pipeline development.
• Advanced SQL for structured data querying and transformation.
• Data modelling, ETL/ELT design and data governance principles.

Big Data & Processing Frameworks

• Apache Spark
• Databricks
• Delta Lake / Delta Tables
• Apache Kafka

Cloud & Data Integration

• AWS ecosystem for cloud‑native data platforms.
• AWS DMS.
• Scalable cloud‑based data pipeline architecture.

DevOps & Engineering Best Practices

• CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and deployments.
• Infrastructure and data workflows in cloud‑native environments.
• Performance tuning and optimisation for batch and real‑time workloads.
• Monitoring, debugging and troubleshooting of distributed systems.

It’s Helpful If You Also Have

• Experience coaching and providing career progression to senior developers and tech leads.
• Strategic thinking, creating flexible and robust plans for investment and change, and communicating these effectively.
• Experience working with managers to deliver complex and sensitive technical messages/solutions upward and across teams.
• Experience managing technologists across multiple teams to ensure they work toward a holistic vision/goal.
• Consultancy experience across a number of sectors is a bonus.

Joining AND

We work hard to ensure that there’s nowhere quite like AND. We believe in people, not resources; we hate unnecessary hierarchy and bureaucracy; we grow fast and forge new trails; we prioritise diversity. If this sounds good to you, fill out the short application form below and we’ll be in touch.