engineer principal- Data Platform and Services, - ST (Seattle, WA)

Starbucks; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Starbucks is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead the Data Platform and Services engineering team. You will architect and evolve enterprise data platforms, ensuring real-time access, accuracy, and security across corporate, supply chain, and store networks.

You will mentor engineers, drive AI-enabled engineering, and partner with architects and managers to deliver scalable, compliant solutions. You will champion seamless API integrations across our digital ecosystem and set standards that

Qualifications

• 10-15 years of professional software development and platform management experience.
• 5+ years of leading teams of six or more software developers.

Responsibilities

• Communicates highly complex technical ideas and architectural strategies clearly to stakeholders.
• Leads and mentors engineering teams to design, build, and sustain enterprise data platforms.
• Drives AI adoption across the software development lifecycle to boost productivity and quality.
• Establishes engineering standards and automates build, test, release, and deployment processes.
• Ensures scalable, secure, resilient, and compliant data platforms across Starbucks systems.

Skills

Data Architecture

Leadership

API Integration

AI Adoption

Observability

Security & Compliance

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Job description

Now Brewing - Data Platform and Services Engineering Leaders! #tobeapartner

From the beginning, Starbucks set out to be a different kind of company. One that not only celebrated coffee and the rich tradition, but that also brought a feeling of connection. We are known for developing extraordinary leaders who share this passion and are guided by their service to others.

Are you passionate about driving data-driven innovation?

We're seeking a talented Principal Engineer to join our team and revolutionize our data capabilities at Starbucks! This is your chance to make a monumental impact by leading the charge in streamlining and innovating our data platform and services across the enterprise, from corporate and supply chain to our customer, partner and in-store experience.

Become the leader of a centralized enterprise data management team, ensuring real-time data access and unparalleled accuracy across all our channels.

Lead the foundation for enterprise data management - your work will pave the way for future innovation at Starbucks.

Champion seamless API integration across our vast digital ecosystem such as commerce, mobile and in-store order, digital drive through, in-store digital menu board, corporate and supply chain, fostering a truly connected enterprise experience.

If you're a leader who thrives in a fast-paced environment and gets energized by tackling complex challenges, we want to hear from you!

As a principal engineer of the Data Platform and Services engineering team, you'll collaborate with solution architects and engineering managers, tackle toughest technical problems in the team to lead our data initiatives and drive technical excellence. You'll lead a group of passionate engineers in building, sustaining, and enhancing critical data platforms used by Starbucks to help drive customer, store, and partner connections and to gain business efficiencies. You'll play a key role in architecting, designing and developing advanced data platforms, fostering composable design and architecture, and ensuring our solutions are secure, performant, resilient, scalable, flexible, and extensible.

The Principal Engineer of Data Platform and Services will be responsible for:

• Communicates highly complex technical ideas, architectural strategies, and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.


• Establishes strong cross-functional, collaborative relationships with business, product, architecture, security, and technology partners to drive alignment and execution.


• Provides technical leadership and mentorship to engineering teams, proactively removing technical barriers and resolving complex development and production issues.


• Champions AI adoption across the software development lifecycle, leveraging AI-assisted engineering and agentic capabilities to improve developer productivity, code quality, testing, documentation, troubleshooting, and operational efficiency.


• Identifies and drives opportunities to embed AI and automation into engineering workflows and platform capabilities, reducing manual effort and accelerating reliable delivery.


• Establishes engineering standards and continuously improves build, test, release, and deployment processes through automation.


• Conducts research and technical evaluations of emerging technologies, including AI, data, cloud, observability, and platform engineering capabilities, and provides recommendations based on business and technology needs.


• Ensures application, data, and infrastructure architectures are scalable, resilient, secure, maintainable, and compliant with company standards and engineering practices.


• Implements technologies in accordance with Information Security principles, with particular focus on protecting highly sensitive and regulated data.


• Designs and enables highly available platforms while driving automation across operational processes to improve reliability, recovery, and engineering efficiency.


• Implements deep telemetry, observability, and measurable success metrics to continuously assess platform health, performance, reliability, and customer impact.


• Establishes proactive monitoring and intelligent alerting across platforms to ensure continuous availability and operational continuity of critical systems.


• Leverages AI-driven insights, automation, and observability to enable proactive issue detection, faster root-cause analysis, and continuous platform optimization.


• Drives technical modernization and simplification, reducing technical debt and improving scalability, maintainability, and long-term platform sustainability.


• Ensures solutions and engineering practices comply with company policies and applicable legal, regulatory, privacy, and security requirements, including PCI.

Basic Qualifications

Education (minimum education level, degree or certification necessary):

• 10-15 years of professional industry experience with software development and platform management


• 5 years of leading teams of six or more software developers