Principal Data Engineer, People Data
Apache Airflow
Big Data
Bigdata
Cloud Data Warehouse
Cloud Platform
Cloud Platforms
Data
Data Analysis
Data Analytics
Data Architecture
Data Build Tool
Data Engineer
Data Engineering
Data Engineering Lead
Data Integration
Data Lake
Data Lakehouse
Data Management
Data Modeling
Data Operations
Data Pipeline
Data Pipelines
Data Platform
Data Processing
Data Warehouse
Data Warehousing
Database
Databases
Databricks
ETL
Snowflake
SQL
Job Description
Okta is seeking a Principal Data Engineer for the Data and Insights team to design, build, and operate scalable data solutions for People (HR) data. This role works closely with People teams and cross-functional data and product partners to maintain data availability and integrity across the employee lifecycle.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and continuously improve high scale data solutions that act as organizational reference architecture and streamline data access.
- Create data quality frameworks including monitoring, anomaly detection, and alerting, with governance, lineage tracking, and change management rigor for externally reported figures.
- Establish and drive consistent data modeling patterns, naming conventions, documentation practices, and metric governance standards across the data organization.
- Lead cross-functional technical initiatives across data verticals to accelerate delivery and strengthen data systems.
- Make sound technical decisions in ambiguous environments, balancing near-term delivery with long-term infrastructure investment.
- Champion data contracts by implementing data contracts and schema evolution practices that support reliability across global product teams.
- Mentor and scale engineering execution by mentoring senior engineers, leading cross-functional task forces, and strengthening a culture of engineering excellence and data-driven decision making.
- Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies and practices to guide the team’s long-term technical direction.
Requirements
- 10+ years of experience in data engineering, with proven senior or lead experience.
- Federal government compliance and security requirements experience is highly desirable.
- Expert-level experience with SQL, ETL/ELT tools (Airflow, dbt), and MPP databases (Snowflake, Redshift).
- Extensive hands-on experience with AWS services including S3, Lambda, EMR, ECR, and EKS.
- Expertise in HR data, including candidate lifecycle, employee records, compensation, and organizational data, plus experience building data models for recruiting analytics, engagement signals, and workforce planning metrics.
- Familiarity with Workday data structures is a bonus.
- Experience building and maintaining both batch and realtime pipelines using technologies such as Spark and Kafka.
- Deep experience designing and working with modern lakehouse and warehouse architectures (Databricks, Snowflake) and modern file formats (Iceberg, Delta).
- Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize and redesign workflows, delivering measurable impact such as efficiency gains and quality improvements.
- Track record of hands-on collaboration with Data Science, Business, and Product teams.
Technologies
- SQL
- Airflow, dbt
- Snowflake, Redshift
- AWS: S3, Lambda, EMR, ECR, EKS
- Spark, Kafka
- Databricks
- Iceberg, Delta
Role Details
- Location: San Francisco, CA (hybrid)
- Salary: USD 197,000 - 270,600 per year
- Experience Level: 10+ years
The Okta Experience
- Supporting Your Well-Being
- Driving Social Impact
- Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community
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