VP, Principal Data Engineer

LPL Financial is seeking a VP, Principal Data Engineer to modernize the investor experience across its Reporting, Statements and Letters platforms. The role combines strategic leadership with hands-on execution to design and deliver enterprise-scale data platforms, including cloud-native pipelines and real-time streaming solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the delivery of scalable, high-quality, and cost-effective data solutions aligned to business priorities.
• Own end-to-end execution across engineering pods, balancing employee and vendor resources to optimize delivery and mitigate operational risk.
• Partner with business and technology leaders to prioritize initiatives, accelerate delivery, and improve engineering productivity.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering excellence, innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Architect and build cloud-native data platforms for large-scale ingestion, transformation, validation, and distribution.
• Design, develop, and optimize ETL/ELT pipelines using Python and AWS tools including Snowflake, DBT, and Airflow.
• Develop event-driven and real-time data processing solutions leveraging Kafka, EventBridge, SQS, SNS, and related technologies.
• Modernize legacy platforms using secure, resilient, reusable cloud-native architectures and patterns.
• Define technical roadmaps, engineering standards, and best practices to advance enterprise data capabilities.
• Ensure platform reliability, scalability, performance, and compliance with service-level objectives.
• Implement data quality, observability, auditing, reconciliation, and monitoring capabilities.
• Drive CI/CD adoption, DevOps automation, and operational best practices that improve resiliency and efficiency.
• Lead root-cause analysis and resolution of complex production issues while optimizing cloud performance and cost management.
• Partner with architects, product teams, and business stakeholders to deliver modern data products and platform capabilities.
• Influence technical strategy, architecture decisions, automation initiatives, and continuous innovation across the data ecosystem.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience designing and developing large-scale ETL/ELT pipelines and data platforms using AWS, Glue, S3, RDS/Aurora, Snowflake, DBT, and Airflow.
• 8+ years of hands-on experience developing data solutions with Python.
• 6+ years building event-driven and streaming architectures using Kafka, EventBridge, SQS, and related technologies.
• 6+ years experience with relational and NoSQL databases, including performance tuning and optimization.
• 6+ years experience with source control, CI/CD, and DevOps practices using GitHub, TeamCity, Jenkins, Octopus, or similar tools.

Technology Stack

• Python
• AWS (including Glue, S3, RDS/Aurora, EventBridge)
• Snowflake, DBT, Airflow
• Kafka, SQS, SNS
• ETL/ELT
• GitHub, TeamCity, Jenkins, Octopus
• CI/CD, DevOps
• NoSQL, Relational databases
• AWS Associate-level certifications: AWS Certified Developer – Associate, AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

Benefits

• 401K matching
• Health benefits
• Employee stock options
• Paid time off
• Volunteer time off

Core Competencies

• Technical leadership and architectural decision-making.
• Deep expertise in data engineering, ETL/ELT, and cloud-native platforms.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and strategic planning skills.
• Ability to translate complex business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Proven ability to lead high-performing teams in fast-paced, agile environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience within financial services, wealth management, or brokerage organizations.
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Copilot Chat, Cursor, or similar technologies.
• Experience with Terraform, infrastructure automation, and data lake implementations.
• AWS Associate-level certifications, such as AWS Certified Developer – Associate or AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate.
• Experience leading enterprise cloud modernization and data transformation programs.
• Experience developing APIs and microservices using .NET technologies.
• Familiarity with GitHub Copilot and other AI-assisted development tools.

Compensation and Location

Location: Fort Mill, SC (onsite)

Salary: USD 159,959 to 266,564 per yearly

Pay Range Details: $159,959.00 - $266,564.00. Actual base salary varies based on factors including relevant skill, prior experience, education, internal peer base salary, demonstrated performance, and geographic location.

Interview and Application Process Information

• LPL will only communicate with a job applicant directly from an @lplfinancial.com email address.
• LPL will never conduct an interview online or in a chatroom forum.
• During an interview, LPL will not request any form of payment from the applicant, or information regarding an applicant’s bank or credit card.
• For questions about the application process, contact LPL’s Human Resources Solutions Center at (855) 575-6947.