Principal Data Platform Engineer

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal Data Platform Engineer based in the United States. The Principal Data Platform Engineer will lead the administration, security, and ongoing optimization of an enterprise Snowflake data platform. This senior individual contributor role is responsible for ensuring the platform remains reliable, scalable, secure, and ready to support growing data needs. You will design and maintain integrations across Snowflake, AWS services, source systems, and downstream applications. Working closely with engineering and security teams, you will establish platform standards, strengthen observability, and protect sensitive and regulated information. You will also drive automation, improve performance and cost efficiency, and develop sustainable operational practices. As a technical leader, you will influence platform architecture, collaborate with technology stakeholders, and support the transition toward a product-oriented delivery model. This is a fully remote opportunity open to candidates anywhere in the United States, with competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits.

As Principal Data Platform Engineer, you will own the technical administration and operational health of the Snowflake environment, ensuring it meets enterprise requirements for performance, security, integration, and long-term supportability. Administer the Snowflake platform: Manage accounts, virtual warehouses, databases, environments, configurations, upgrades, and other core platform components. Manage supporting tools: Maintain Snowflake connectors, drivers, data-loading services such as Snowpipe, and associated partner tools. Build and maintain integrations: Design, implement, and support connections between Snowflake, source systems, AWS services, APIs, ETL/ELT tools, and downstream data consumers. Strengthen platform security: Implement and maintain network policies, encryption, data masking, audit logging, and other security controls in collaboration with the Security team. Establish observability standards: Partner with technical leads to develop monitoring, alerting, usage tracking, and performance visibility across the data platform. Monitor platform health: Track reliability and performance, investigate technical issues, troubleshoot incidents, and coordinate effective resolution. Automate platform operations: Streamline administrative tasks and implement infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD practices using Terraform or similar tools where appropriate. Optimize platform consumption: Monitor Snowflake usage and identify opportunities to improve warehouse sizing, resource utilization, and credit consumption. Document operational practices: Create and maintain platform standards, technical documentation, runbooks, and support procedures to ensure consistent and sustainable operations. Manage vendor engagement: Serve as the technical point of contact for Snowflake, coordinating support cases, evaluating new features, and monitoring platform developments. Collaborate across engineering teams: Influence technical decisions, align platform practices with enterprise standards, and support the adoption of product-oriented delivery methods. Requirements: The ideal candidate combines extensive data engineering or database administration experience with deep hands-on Snowflake expertise, strong cloud engineering skills, and a practical understanding of enterprise security and platform operations. Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience. Professional experience: At least 10 years of experience in data engineering, database administration, or data platform roles. Snowflake administration: At least 3 years of hands-on experience administering Snowflake in a production enterprise environment. Data integration expertise: Strong experience building and supporting data integrations using Snowpipe, connectors, APIs, ETL/ELT tooling, and related technologies. Cloud engineering: Strong experience with AWS and the services commonly integrated with Snowflake. SQL and scripting: Advanced SQL skills and practical scripting experience with Python or a similar language. Security and compliance: Experience implementing security controls for sensitive or regulated data, including personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), and HIPAA-related requirements. Technical leadership: Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate with, advise, and influence technical leaders across engineering and security teams. Infrastructure as code: Experience with Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code tools for managing Snowflake environments is preferred. Certifications: SnowPro Core and SnowPro Advanced Administrator or Architect certifications are preferred. Monitoring and observability: Familiarity with monitoring, alerting, and observability tools for data platforms is an advantage. Data orchestration: Experience with dbt, Airflow, or similar data orchestration and transformation tools is preferred. Industry experience: Background in insurance, claims, healthcare, or financial services technology environments is beneficial. Organizational transformation: Experience supporting a transition from project-based delivery to product- or service-oriented operating models is an advantage. Benefits: Annual base salary: $133,000–$170,000, depending on geographic market, skills, experience, education, and other relevant factors. Remote work: Fully remote position available anywhere in the United States. Health insurance: Medical, dental, and vision coverage. Health and dependent care accounts: Access to Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA). Life and accident coverage: Life insurance and Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) insurance. Retirement savings: 401(k) plan to support long-term financial well-being. Education support: Tuition reimbursement to support continued learning and professional development. Wellness resources: Access to resources and programs designed to support physical, financial, and personal well-being. Total compensation package: Benefits and compensation designed to support employees' health, financial security, and overall quality of life. Eligibility may vary according to employment status.