Principal Data Engineer

CNA Insurance; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 97,000 - 189,000; Full time

Job summary

CNA Insurance is seeking a senior, hands-on principal engineer to drive modernization and architectural excellence across reinsurance, accounting, regulatory reporting, and financial data platforms. You will be a technical authority partnering with executives to enable growth, compliance, and data-driven decision making.

The role emphasizes architecture, coding, and delivery execution with no direct people management responsibilities, while mentoring teams and guiding offshore resources as

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in CS or related field with advanced studies preferred.
• Typically 10+ years in application engineering or related roles.
• 7+ years of coding proficiency across multiple languages is preferred.
• Experience advancing Agile methods and technical leadership.

Responsibilities

• Act as technical authority for modernization-focused product teams across CNA’s platforms.
• Own technical direction for architecture, design, data strategy, and cloud services.
• Lead hands-on design, coding, testing, and production support with a focus on quality.
• Define modernization roadmaps to improve data quality, resiliency, and agility.
• Translate business goals into practical technical solutions and delivery plans.
• Provide architecture guidance and mentorship while not managing people directly.
• Ensure secure delivery practices, release readiness, and production stability.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Enterprise architecture

Cloud platforms

Data modeling

APIs & integration

Agile delivery

Technical mentorship

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS

Master’s preferred

Tools

Google Cloud Platform

BigQuery

Cloud Storage

Dataflow

Dataproc

Pub/Sub

Cloud Composer

Job description

You have a clear vision of where your career can go. And we have the leadership to help you get there. At CNA, we strive to create a culture in which people know they matter and are part of something important, ensuring the abilities of all employees are used to their fullest potential.

Hands-on principal engineer and distinguished technology leader responsible for the strategic direction, modernization, standardization, and operational excellence of CNA's reinsurance, accounting, regulatory reporting, and financial data systems. This is an individual contributor role focused on architecture, engineering, coding, technical execution, and influence across teams; it is not a people manager position. Serves as a senior technical authority partnering with business and technology executives to define long-term strategy, drive enterprise modernization, and ensure technology platforms enable growth, compliance, operational efficiency, and data-driven decision-making.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Role expectation: This position is intended for a senior hands-on technologist who remains deeply involved in architecture, engineering, coding, troubleshooting, and delivery execution. The role provides technical leadership and influence across teams but does not include direct people management responsibilities.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Acts as the technical authority for a modernization-focused product team supporting CNA’s reinsurance, accounting, regulatory reporting, and financial data platforms across the full solution stack, including applications, integrations, data, cloud, and architecture.
• Owns technical direction and key engineering decisions for business-critical platforms, including architecture patterns, solution design, integration approach, data strategy, cloud services, engineering standards, and technical debt reduction priorities.
• Leads and directly contributes to hands-on design, coding, automation, testing, troubleshooting, implementation, and continuous improvement of scalable, secure, reliable, and maintainable solutions.
• Defines and advances modernization roadmaps that simplify legacy ecosystems, improve data quality and reporting accuracy, strengthen resiliency, and enable long-term agility for business and regulatory needs.
• Partners with business and technology leaders to translate strategic goals, financial controls, compliance needs, and operational priorities into practical technical solutions and delivery plans.
• Provides architecture guidance, mentoring, delivery governance, and technical influence for internal, external, and offshore resources while remaining an individual contributor without direct people management responsibility.
• Maintains accountability for engineering quality, secure delivery practices, release readiness, production stability, and alignment with enterprise architecture, cloud, data, and security standards.

May perform additional duties as assigned.

Reporting Relationship

Typically Director or above

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

• Expertise in engineering, enterprise architecture, solution design, and technical leadership for modernization-focused product teams.
• Strong understanding of reinsurance, accounting, regulatory reporting, financial controls, reconciliation, premium and loss transaction data, and insurance business processes.
• Deep knowledge of the full solution stack, including application architecture, systems integration, data modeling, cloud platforms, databases, APIs, ETL/ELT, reporting data flows, and operational resiliency.
• Ability to make and communicate technical decisions, set engineering standards, guide architecture direction, influence and align with data strategy, and prioritize technical debt reduction.
• Hands-on proficiency with enterprise application development, modern engineering practices, automation, secure software delivery, Agile delivery, unit testing, release readiness, and production support.
• Experience with cloud and data services such as Google Cloud Platform, BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Dataflow, Dataproc, Pub/Sub, Cloud Composer, or comparable enterprise data platforms.
• Ability to influence senior business and technology stakeholders, mentor engineers, and guide internal, external, and offshore teams through technical expertise rather than direct people management.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree with Master’s preferred in Computer Science, Information Technology, related discipline or equivalent work experience.
• Typically 10+ years of experience in application engineering.
• 7+ years of coding proficiency in multiple programming languages preferred.
• Experience advancing the use of Agile methods.
• Previous technical or project leadership experience required; direct people management experience is not required.
• Applicable certifications preferred, including cloud, application development, architecture, data engineering, or related enterprise technology certifications.

In certain jurisdictions, CNA is legally required to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation for this role. In District of Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Washington, the national base pay range for this job level is $97,000 to $189,000 annually. Salary determinations are based on various factors, including but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and location. CNA offers a comprehensive and competitive benefits package to help our employees – and their family members – achieve their physical, financial, emotional and social wellbeing goals. For a detailed look at CNA’s benefits, please visit cnabenefits.com.

CNA utilizes AI-enabled technology during the recruiting process. For more information, please visit our careers page.

CNA is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in the recruitment process. To request an accommodation, please contact [e-mail]