Remote Principal Data Governance Engineer

Confluent; Jackson (MS); Remote; USD 285,000 - 342,000; Full time

Job summary

Confluent is rewriting how data moves. We’re seeking a Principal Engineer to shape long‑term architecture, scale governance, and ensure reliability across Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform.

This role owns company‑level domains, sets direction for critical initiatives, mentors senior engineers, and collaborates with executives and product leaders to align technical vision with business goals.

Qualifications

• Proven track record of leading the architecture and delivery of large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep knowledge of fault tolerance, consistency, scalability, and cloud-native platforms.
• Experience with streaming architectures and data catalogs or governance systems.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and influence at the executive level.
• Strong track record of delivering shipping, real-world outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive company-level technical strategy for critical governance systems.
• Architect and evolve high-performance metadata management with low-latency lookups.
• Design data protection capabilities — encryption, access control, schema validation.
• Build and maintain highly available, multi-tenant governance infrastructure.
• Establish engineering standards and architectural patterns across the org.
• Partner with executives, product management, and engineering leaders on shared architecture decisions.
• Mentor senior and staff-level engineers and promote open-source contributions.
• Contribute to open-source projects and represent Confluent externally.

Skills

Distributed Systems

Streaming Architecture

Leadership Presence

Execution

Strategic Influence

Cloud Infrastructure

Job description

Confluent is rewriting how data moves. We’re seeking a Principal Engineer to shape long‑term architecture, scale governance, and ensure reliability across Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform.

This role owns company‑level domains, sets direction for critical initiatives, mentors senior engineers, and collaborates with executives and product leaders to align technical vision with business goals.