Principal Software Engineer – Data Platform

Harnham Ltd; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 230,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

A high-growth tech company seeks a Principal Software Engineer to lead the development of a modern data platform. This pivotal role involves tackling large-scale data challenges and aligning technical architecture with business strategy. The ideal candidate has substantial experience in data engineering, leadership capabilities, and expertise in tools like Kafka and Snowflake.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in data engineering or platform architecture.
• 5+ years at Principal Engineer level.
• Deep expertise with Kafka and streaming systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and build a next-gen data platform.
• Lead data modeling and governance best practices.
• Champion engineering excellence and mentor senior engineers.

Skills

Data Engineering

Platform Architecture

Cloud-native Architecture

Kafka

ClickHouse

Iceberg

Snowflake

Leadership

Communication

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Principal Software Engineer – Data Platform

Principal Software Engineer - Data Platform

San Francisco, CA (Remote Eligible - US Only)

$230K-$280K base + equity

Are you ready to lead the design and build of a world-class data platform from the ground up?

A high-growth, product-led tech company is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to lead the build-out of a modern, scalable data platform from the ground up. If you're excited about solving massive data challenges and shaping the infrastructure that supports real-time analytics and AI/ML at scale, this role is for you.

As the most senior technical IC on the Data Platform team, you'll partner with leadership across Engineering, Product, Security, and Compliance to design a low-latency, cloud-native data architecture using best-in-class tools like Kafka, Iceberg, ClickHouse, Tinybird, and Snowflake.

Why this role?

• Join a growing Data Platform team
• Own the technical vision and architecture end-to-end
• Tackle petabyte-scale data challenges and real-time streaming use cases
• Work with a cutting-edge tech stack (Kafka, Iceberg, ClickHouse, Snowflake, etc.)
• Drive platform evolution to support AI/ML and company-wide analytics

What You'll Do

• Design and build a next-gen data platform to power product and internal use cases
• Architect for batch + streaming, scalability, fault tolerance, and low latency
• Lead data modeling, warehousing, governance, and ingestion best practices
• Champion engineering excellence and mentor senior engineers
• Align technical decisions with long-term business strategy
• Optimize for performance, cost, and resiliency in a modern cloud environment

What We're Looking For

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering or platform architecture
• 5+ years at the Principal Engineer level or equivalent
• Deep expertise with Kafka (and its ecosystem), streaming data systems
• Strong experience with ClickHouse, Iceberg, Snowflake, or similar tools
• Cloud-native architecture expertise (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• Track record of designing data systems for compliance and governance
• Experience scaling systems to support petabyte-level workloads
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and leadership skills
• Bonus: Experience enabling AI/ML platforms or preparing for IPO-scale growth

If you can’t see what you’re looking for right now, send us your CV anyway – we’re always getting fresh new roles through the door.

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