AI-First Data Architect & Tech Leader

Applied Systems; United States; On-site; USD 160,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Applied Systems is seeking a Principal Data Engineer to shape the AI-first data architecture across the enterprise. You will lead large-scale data platforms, define standards for quality and governance, and mentor engineers to raise the bar on delivery.

Your work will enable AI initiatives, affect data pipelines, and drive observability and reliability while collaborating with cross-functional teams to scale engineering impact.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in software/data engineering or architecture with outstanding impact.
• Degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Expert knowledge of data architecture principles and best practices.
• Hands-on builder experience (actively coding, testing, and validating architecture at scale).
• Proven ability to influence without authority.

Responsibilities

• Define large-scale data architecture decisions — batch/streaming platforms, warehouses, and lakehouses — and evaluate tradeoffs for quality, scalability, and long-term sustainability.
• Architect observability, alerting, and incident-response frameworks to monitor the health and SLAs of data pipelines across the organization; serve as the technical escalation point for complex data architecture problems
• Partner across teams to define standards for data quality, lineage tracking, access control, cataloging, and governance; establish SLAs/SLOs for data assets
• Design data modeling standards across OLAP/warehouse, OLTP/transactional, streaming/real-time, and AI/vector/feature-store use cases
• Define patterns for embedding AI and agent-supported workflows across the data engineering lifecycle, and enable teams to adopt them at scale
• Define and enforce data engineering standards, best practices, and design patterns across the organization
• Mentor and grow engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and technical guidance
• Influence cross-functional roadmaps by translating business requirements into sound data architecture strategies

Skills

Leadership

Data architecture

AI-first

GCP BigQuery

dbt

Mentoring

Communication

Influence without authority

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

dbt

BigQuery

Vector stores

Data catalogs

Job description

Applied Systems is seeking a Principal Data Engineer to shape the AI-first data architecture across the enterprise. You will lead large-scale data platforms, define standards for quality and governance, and mentor engineers to raise the bar on delivery.

Your work will enable AI initiatives, affect data pipelines, and drive observability and reliability while collaborating with cross-functional teams to scale engineering impact.