Principal Data Engineer

Job Description Applied Systems is looking for a Principal Data Engineer to shape the architectural foundation of our Data and Analytics capabilities as we scale to enable better insights and lay the groundwork for AI across the enterprise. The ideal candidate brings deep data architecture expertise with a commitment to embracing AI and enabling the success of engineering teams across Applied. At Applied, Principal architects are force-multipliers — technical leaders and practitioners who are passionate about designing, guiding, and teaching by doing. You will live our Leadership Principles: owning outcomes, insisting on the highest standards, and inventing and simplifying solutions for our customers and teams. You will have an AI-First approach to architecture with a view of AI and automation as leverage to scale your impact beyond individual throughput. You will define the long-term vision for AI-enabled data architecture, design and govern agentic workflows with appropriate guardrails, and surface system-level insights that raise quality and velocity across the domain. What You’ll Do Define large-scale data architecture decisions — batch/streaming platforms, warehouses, and lakehouses — and evaluate tradeoffs for quality, scalability, and long-term sustainability Architect observability, alerting, and incident-response frameworks to monitor the health and SLAs of data pipelines across the organization; serve as the technical escalation point for complex data architecture problemsPartner across Applied teams to define standards for data quality, lineage tracking, access control, cataloging, and governance; establish SLAs/SLOs for critical data assetsDesign data modeling standards across OLAP/warehouse (dimensional modeling), OLTP/transactional, streaming/real-time, and AI/vector/feature-store use casesDefine patterns for embedding AI and agent-supported workflows across the data engineering lifecycle, and enable teams to adopt them at scale Define and enforce data engineering standards, best practices, and design patterns across the organizationMentor and grow engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and technical guidance Influence cross-functional roadmaps by translating business requirements into sound data architecture strategies What You'll Need To Succeed 15+ years in software/data engineering or architecture with outstanding impactDegree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience Expert knowledge of data architecture principles and best practicesHands-on builder experience (actively coding, testing, and validating architecture at scale) Proven ability to influence without authority Pragmatic approach and obsessed with eliminating waste Player-coach mindset with a commitment to teaching through actionAdaptability, resilience, and the ability to thrive in ambiguity with iterationExcellent communication skills, able to meet your audience where they are and explain complex problems clearlyExpertise across data and software technologies — GCP BigQuery and dbt a plusProven experience architecting large-scale data warehouses or lakehouses Solid understanding of data modeling concepts including dimensional modeling and streaming architectures; experience with vector stores is a plusStrong understanding of data governance; experience implementing data catalogs a plus Talent shows up in a lot of different ways, and we mean that. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experience levels, including military members and their spouses and those without a traditional degree or tech background. If this role speaks to you, apply. Why You’ll Like Working on Team Applied The best work happens when smart people move fast, together. For over 40+ years, Applied has built technology that solves real problems for insurance professionals - and we’re still pushing what’s possible. You’ll be part of our people-first culture built on trust, inclusion, and growth - where you’re su