Principal Software Engineer - Data Platform San Francisco, CA (Remote OK - US Only) Base Salary: $230K-$280K + Equity Ready to architect a world-class data platform from the ground up? A fast-growing, product-driven tech company is hiring a
Principal Software Engineer to take charge of building a modern, cloud-native data platform from scratch. If you're passionate about solving large-scale data challenges and building infrastructure that supports real-time analytics and AI/ML, this could be your next big move.
What's in it for you?- Be a founding member of a growing Data Platform team
- Lead the design and architecture of the entire platform
- Work on massive-scale data and real-time streaming pipelines
- Use state-of-the-art technologies (Kafka, Iceberg, ClickHouse, Snowflake, etc.)
- Help shape the platform that fuels AI, ML, and analytics company-wide
What You'll Be Doing:- Build a next-generation data platform for both internal and product-facing needs
- Design systems that handle both batch and real-time data with scalability, resilience, and speed
- Lead efforts around data modeling, ingestion, warehousing, and governance
- Set engineering best practices and mentor senior team members
- Ensure technical decisions support the company's long-term goals
- Optimize infrastructure for cost-efficiency, performance, and reliability in a cloud-first environment
Who You Are:- 8+ years of experience in data infrastructure or platform engineering
- 5+ years operating at a Principal Engineer (or equivalent) level
- Deep expertise with Kafka and real-time streaming architectures
- Hands-on experience with tools like ClickHouse, Apache Iceberg, and Snowflake
- Strong background in cloud-based systems (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
- Experience building secure, compliant, and governed data platforms
- Proven success scaling systems to handle petabytes of data
- Strong communicator and collaborative leader
- Bonus: Experience with AI/ML infrastructure or preparing for hypergrowth/IPO readiness