Principal Software Engineer, Semantic Data Services

Jobtailor; California (MO); On-site; USD 160,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

WEX seeks a Senior Data Architect to define the architectural direction for our Semantic Data Lake and data-as-a-service offerings. You will design semantic objects combining data, context, relationships, and governance, while building scalable patterns across business lines.

You will mentor engineers, stay hands-on with critical platform components, and collaborate with Product, AI, Analytics, and Risk teams to deliver robust, reusable platform capabilities.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, distributed systems, data platforms, or related technology areas.
• Experience operating at Staff, Principal, or equivalent technical scope.
• Deep software engineering and distributed systems expertise.
• Experience designing and building large-scale production platforms.
• Deep understanding of modern data architecture, including large-scale data processing, streaming, lakehouse architectures, data products, and distributed systems.
• Deep understanding of semantic data technologies and industry direction.
• Experience with semantic modeling, ontology, metadata platforms, knowledge graphs, data catalogs, enterprise data modeling, or related technologies.
• Ability to translate complex business concepts into scalable technical abstractions and reusable platform capabilities.
• Strong understanding of data quality, governance, lineage, security, privacy, and operational reliability.
• Experience building platforms adopted by multiple engineering teams, business domains, or product organizations.
• Strong architectural judgment and ability to reason through complex tradeoffs.
• Ability to influence technical direction and drive alignment across teams and organizational boundaries.
• Strong communication skills.
• Preferred: experience building platforms supporting AI/ML, generative AI, RAG, or agentic applications.
• Preferred: knowledge representation, semantic search, context engineering, graph technologies, or AI-ready enterprise data.
• Preferred: modernizing large enterprise data ecosystems.
• Preferred: Spark, Flink, Kafka, Iceberg, Snowflake, Databricks, cloud-native data services, graph databases, or equivalent technologies.
• Preferred: defining reusable frameworks, APIs, standards, or platform capabilities broadly adopted beyond an individual team.

Responsibilities

• Define and influence architecture and technical direction for semantic data platforms.
• Design semantic objects and reusable platform capabilities.
• Develop scalable patterns for semantic modeling across lines of business.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical guidance.
• Remain hands-on with architecture, design, and prototyping.

Skills

Semantic Data Technologies

Distributed Systems

Data Engineering

Architectural Design

Technical Leadership

Mentoring Engineers

Communication Skills

APIs & Frameworks

Data Governance

Data Quality

Tools

Spark

Flink

Kafka

Iceberg

Snowflake

Databricks

Graph Databases

Cloud-Native Data Services

Job description

• Define and influence architecture and technical direction for WEX's Semantic Data Lake and next-generation Data as a Service
• Design and build semantic business objects combining enterprise data, business context, relationships, metrics, derived attributes, rules, lineage, quality, and governance
• Develop scalable patterns and frameworks for semantic objects across multiple lines of business
• Build platform capabilities across semantic modeling, ontology, metadata, knowledge graphs, data quality, lineage, data contracts, and governance
• Translate complex business concepts into durable technical models and reusable platform capabilities
• Capture business context across databases, applications, workflows, documents, policies, and institutional knowledge
• Enable AI and agentic applications to discover, understand, reason over, and safely act on trusted enterprise data
• Design reusable APIs, services, frameworks, and developer experiences
• Solve distributed systems, data processing, scalability, reliability, and performance challenges
• Establish engineering patterns and architectural standards and influence adoption across teams
• Mentor engineers and provide technical guidance
• Remain hands-on with architecture, design, prototyping, code, and critical platform components
• Partner with engineers, architects, Product, AI, Analytics, Risk, Finance, and business teams across WEX

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, distributed systems, data platforms, or related technology areas
• Demonstrated experience operating at Staff, Principal, or equivalent technical scope
• Deep software engineering and distributed systems expertise
• Experience designing and building large-scale production platforms
• Deep understanding of modern data architecture, including large-scale data processing, streaming, lakehouse architectures, data products, and distributed systems
• Deep understanding of semantic data technologies and industry direction
• Experience with semantic modeling, ontology, metadata platforms, knowledge graphs, data catalogs, enterprise data modeling, or closely related technologies
• Ability to translate complex business concepts into scalable technical abstractions and reusable platform capabilities
• Strong understanding of data quality, governance, lineage, security, privacy, and operational reliability
• Experience building platforms or capabilities adopted by multiple engineering teams, business domains, or product organizations
• Strong architectural judgment and ability to reason through complex tradeoffs
• Ability to influence technical direction and drive alignment across teams and organizational boundaries
• Strong communication skills
• Preferred: experience building platforms supporting AI/ML, generative AI, RAG, or agentic applications
• Preferred: experience with knowledge representation, semantic search, context engineering, graph technologies, or AI-ready enterprise data
• Preferred: experience modernizing large enterprise data ecosystems
• Preferred: experience with Spark, Flink, Kafka, Iceberg, Snowflake, Databricks, cloud-native data services, graph databases, or equivalent technologies
• Preferred: experience defining reusable frameworks, APIs, standards, or platform capabilities broadly adopted beyond an individual team

Core Competencies

Demonstrates expertise in designing and building scalable data platforms, with a strong focus on semantic data technologies, data governance, and architectural standards. Proven ability to translate complex business requirements into reusable technical models and influence cross-team collaboration.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• Semantic Data Technologies
• Data Governance
• Distributed Systems Expertise
• Large-Scale Data Processing
• Architectural Standards

ATS Optimization Keywords

Hard Skills

• Software Engineering
• Data Engineering
• Semantic Modeling
• Ontology
• Metadata Platforms
• Knowledge Graphs
• Data Quality
• Data Lineage
• Data Security
• Data Privacy

Soft Skills

• Strong Communication Skills
• Mentoring Engineers
• Influencing Technical Direction

Industry Keywords

• Data Lake
• Data as a Service
• AI/ML
• Generative AI
• Context Engineering

Tools & Technologies

• Spark
• Flink
• Kafka
• Iceberg
• Snowflake
• Databricks
• Cloud-Native Data Services
• Graph Databases