Principal Engineer, Data Platforms (Architecture & Ingestion)

CVS Health Corporation; New Jersey; On-site; USD 144,000 - 288,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Dental coverage

Vision coverage

Paid time off

Retirement savings options

Wellness programs

Job summary

CVS Health is seeking a Principal Engineer, Data Platforms to lead the architecture and evolution of our Unified Ingestion Platform and Federated Data Lake. You will drive cloud-native design across Azure, AWS, and GCP, owning the Databricks strategy, security, governance, and data lifecycle management.

This role focuses on scaling to hundreds of terabytes daily and enabling AI/ML workloads with OpenTelemetry and modern DevOps practices.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience architecting, building, and operating enterprise-scale cloud data platforms.
• 8+ years of experience designing and administering Databricks platforms, including Spark and Delta Lake.
• 8+ years of experience implementing Infrastructure-as-Code and CI/CD pipelines.
• 7+ years of experience designing and operating high-scale streaming ingestion architectures.
• 5+ years in leadership roles driving multi-cloud platform strategy and governance.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the architecture, strategy, and multi-year roadmap for the data platforms.
• Lead enterprise Databricks architecture, multi-cloud accounts, workspace design, and governance.

Skills

Platform architecture

Multi-cloud architecture

OpenTelemetry (OTEL)

Observability

AI/ML enablement

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Databricks

Terraform

GitHub Actions

Job description

We're building a world of health around every individual - shaping a more connected, convenient and compassionate health experience. At CVS Health, you'll be surrounded by passionate colleagues who care deeply, innovate with purpose, hold ourselves accountable and prioritize safety and quality in everything we do.

Join us and be part of something bigger - helping to simplify health care one person, one family and one community at a time.

POSITION SUMMARY

We are seeking a Principal Engineer, Data Platforms to serve as the senior technical authority responsible for the architecture, engineering, governance, and evolution of the Unified Ingestion Platform and Federated Data Lake supporting enterprise observability, security, and operational telemetry data. The Principal Engineer, Data Platforms will define and execute the technology strategy for a highly scalable, cloud-native data platform capable of ingesting and processing hundreds of terabytes of data daily across Azure, AWS, and GCP. The Principal Engineer, Data Platforms will own the enterprise Databricks platform strategy and architecture, including multi-cloud account structures, workspace design, infrastructure automation, security controls, governance frameworks, data lifecycle management, metadata services, and platform standardization. The Principal Engineer, Data Platforms will lead a multi-year transformation initiative focused on consolidating fragmented observability, security, and operational telemetry platforms into a unified, governed, and cost-efficient ecosystem leveraging Databricks, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and modern cloud-native engineering practices. As the organization’s foremost technical expert in enterprise data platforms, the Principal Engineer, Data Platforms will establish engineering standards, drive infrastructure-as-code and policy-as-code adoption, lead enterprise-wide architecture decisions, and influence strategic technology investments. The Principal Engineer, Data Platforms will partner with engineering, security, operations, infrastructure, and business stakeholders to deliver a resilient, scalable, secure, and future-ready data platform that improves operational intelligence, strengthens governance, accelerates onboarding, enables AI/ML and analytics workloads, and promotes consistent multi-cloud platform operations across the enterprise.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Platform Architecture & Engineering Leadership: Define and own the architecture, strategy, and multi-year roadmap for the Unified Ingestion Platform and Federated Data Lake supporting observability, security, and operational telemetry data across the enterprise. Architect and scale high-volume ingestion and processing capabilities supporting 250+ TB per day across logs, metrics, traces, security events, and operational datasets while driving platform modernization and convergence initiatives. Establish and govern enterprise Databricks architecture, including multi-cloud account structures, workspace strategies, environment isolation, metadata management, data governance, lineage, and secure access models. Lead implementation of Infrastructure-as-Code, Policy-as-Code, automated provisioning, and enterprise-grade CI/CD pipelines to enable reliable, standardized, and scalable platform operations. Define enterprise security, governance, observability, reliability, and operational excellence practices while aligning platform standards with OpenTelemetry (OTEL), Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF), and enterprise compliance requirements.
• Technical Leadership, Optimization & Innovation: Serve as the highest-level technical escalation point and provide architectural leadership across engineering, security, infrastructure, and platform teams. Establish FinOps strategies, cost allocation frameworks, resource optimization practices, and capacity planning models to ensure efficient and cost-effective platform operations. Mentor engineers and architects while driving adoption of cloud-native engineering principles, automation frameworks, governance standards, and platform best practices. Evaluate emerging technologies and develop strategic roadmaps that improve platform scalability, reliability, governance, developer productivity, and operational efficiency. Enable advanced analytics, security analytics, observability intelligence, and AI/ML workloads through trusted, governed, and reusable enterprise data platform capabilities.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 10+ years of experience architecting, building, and operating enterprise-scale cloud data platforms, data lakes, distributed systems, and large-scale data ingestion ecosystems supporting mission-critical workloads.
• 8+ years of experience designing and administering Databricks platforms, including Apache Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, secure data access patterns, metadata management, lineage, and enterprise governance frameworks.
• 8+ years of experience implementing Infrastructure-as-Code, platform automation, CI/CD pipelines, and Policy-as-Code controls using technologies such as Terraform, GitHub Actions, or comparable cloud-native automation platforms.
• 7+ years of experience designing and operating high-scale streaming and telemetry ingestion architectures processing more than 100 TB per day using technologies such as Kafka, Event Hub, Kinesis, Pub/Sub, NiFi, Cribl, or similar platforms.
• 5+ years of experience serving as a Principal Engineer, Lead Architect, or equivalent technical leadership role driving enterprise platform strategy, multi-cloud architecture across Azure, AWS, and GCP, engineering standards, security governance, and large-scale transformation initiatives resulting in measurable improvements in scalability, reliability, operational efficiency, governance maturity, and platform adoption.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Extensive experience building and evolving enterprise-scale data platforms, analytics ecosystems, observability platforms, or cloud-native engineering platforms within large and highly regulated environments.
• Hands-on expertise with Unity Catalog, Delta Sharing, metadata services, lineage frameworks, information stewardship, retention controls, and federated operating models.
• Proven success driving Splunk rationalization efforts, security analytics modernization, SIEM ecosystems, telemetry consolidation, or monitoring transformation programs.
• Strong background designing secure serverless computing environments, multi-tenant architectures, workload isolation strategies, and Databricks deployments spanning Azure, AWS, and GCP.
• Demonstrated success establishing FinOps disciplines, consumption governance, chargeback methodologies, provisioning automation, and resource optimization programs that improve efficiency and operational simplicity.
• Databricks certifications (Data Engineer, Data Architect, Platform Architect, or equivalent) coupled with knowledge of AI/ML enablement, advanced analytical workloads, OpenTelemetry (OTEL), and Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF) standards.

EDUCATION

Bachelor’s degree from accredited university or equivalent work experience (HS diploma + 4 years relevant experience).

BUSINESS OVERVIEW

Bring your heart to CVS Health

Every one of us at CVS Health shares a single, clear purpose: Bringing our heart to every moment of your health. This purpose guides our commitment to deliver enhanced human-central health care for a rapidly changing world. Anchored in our brand - with heart at its center - our purpose sends a personal message that how we deliver our services is just as important as what we deliver.

Our Heart At Work Behaviors

We want everyone who works at CVS Health to feel empowered by the role they play in transforming our culture and accelerating our ability to innovate and deliver solutions to make health care more personal, convenient and affordable. We strive to promote and sustain a culture of diversity, inclusion and belonging every day.

CVS Health is an affirmative action employer, and is an equal opportunity employer, as are the physician-owned businesses for which CVS Health provides management services.

We do not discriminate in recruiting, hiring, promotion, or any other personnel action based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sex/gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

We proudly support and encourage people with military experience (active, veterans, reservists and National Guard) as well as military spouses to apply for CVS Health job opportunities.

Pay Range

The typical pay range for this role is: $144,200.00 - $288,400.00. This pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full-time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls. The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors. This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short-term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above. This position also includes an award target in the company’s equity award program.

Great benefits for great people

• Medical coverage
• Dental coverage
• Vision coverage
• Paid time off
• Retirement savings options
• Wellness programs
• Other resources, based on eligibility

We anticipate the application window for this opening will close on: 10/31/2026

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state and local laws.

Our Work Experience is the combination of everything that’s unique about us: our culture, our core values, our company meetings, our commitment to sustainability, our recognition programs, but most importantly, it’s our people. Our employees are self-disciplined, hard working, curious, trustworthy, humble, and truthful. They make choices according to what is best for the team, they live for opportunities to collaborate and make a difference, and they make us the #1 Top Workplace in the area.