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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Principal Data Engineer, People Data - **Company:** Okta, Inc. - **Location:** Bellevue, WA, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $197,000.0 - $270,600.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Airflow, Amazon S3, Data Analysis, Databases, Information Engineering, Data Governance, Extract Transform Load (ETL), Data Security, Data Structures, Data Systems, Simple Data Format, SQL Databases, System Availability, Snowflake, Apache Spark, Data Lineage, Apache Kafka, Data Management, Data Pipelines, Workday, Databricks - **Published:** July 18, 2026 - **Apply:** https://diversityjobs.com/main/sendform/8/8/28176/1/17628424?backUrl=%2Fcareer%2F17628424%2FPrincipal-Data-Engineer-People-Data-Washington-Bellevue ## About the Role * Experience: 10+ years in a data engineering role, with proven experience in a senior or lead capacity. Experience with Federal government compliance and security requirements is highly desirable. * Technical Expertise: Expert-level experience with SQL, ETL/ELT tools (Airflow, dbt), and MPP databases (Snowflake, Redshift). Extensive hands-on experience with AWS services (S3, Lambda, EMR, ECR, EKS). * People Data expertise: expertise in HR data - specifically in candidate lifecycle, employee records, compensation, and organizational data. Experience designing data models that capture recruiting analytics, engagement signals, and workforce planning metrics. * Familiarity with Workday data structures is a bonus * You have experience building and maintaining batch and realtime pipelines using technologies like Spark, 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/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements) * Track record of hands-on collaboration with Data Science, Business, and Product teams #LI-Hybrid #LI-MC1 ## Description As a Principal Data Engineer on the Data and Insights team, you will be a key technical leader responsible for architecting, building, and maintaining our most critical and scalable data solutions. This role involves leading complex projects and collaborating closely with product engineers, analytic engineers, data analysts and data scientists to ensure data availability and integrity of the enterprise. As a Principal member of the team you will have a proven ability to tie engineering initiatives to product and business impact. You will also demonstrate a strong sense of judgement, and the ability to influence across the organization. What you'll be doing * Design, build and evolve high scale data solutions that serve as the reference architecture for the organization and simplify data access across the organization * Develop data quality frameworks, monitoring, anomaly detection, and alerting, with governance, lineage tracking, and change management rigor appropriate for externally reported numbers * Drive adoption of consistent data modeling patterns, naming conventions, documentation norms, and metric governance standards across the data organization * Lead cross-functional technical initiatives across data verticals to accelerate delivery and harden data systems * Navigate ambiguity and make sound technical decisions, balancing short-term delivery with long-term infrastructure investment * Champion Data Contracts: implement data contracts and schema evolution practices to ensure reliability across global product teams * Mentor and Scale: Raise the technical bar by mentoring senior engineers, leading cross functional task forces, and fostering a culture of engineering excellence and data driven decision making * Stay at the forefront of the data landscape, adopting and advocating for emerging technologies and practices to guide the team's long-term technical direction ## Related Videos - [From Messy Queries to Scalable Systems - How Data Engineering actually works](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100203-from-messy-queries-to-scalable-systems-how-data-engineering-actually-works) - [Destigmatizing the Workplace: Building Real Inclusion](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1492-destigmatizing-the-workplace-building-real-inclusion) - [WeAreDevelopers LIVE - CSS is DOOMed](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1838-wearedevelopers-live-css-is-doomed) - [Enjoying SQL data pipelines with dbt](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/823-enjoying-sql-data-pipelines-with-dbt) - [AI Model Management Life Circles: ML Ops For Generative AI Models From Research to Deployment](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1152-ai-model-management-life-circles-ml-ops-for-generative-ai-models-from-research-to-deployment) - [The Future of Employee Wellbeing: Benefits, Trust & Performance](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1808-the-future-of-employee-wellbeing-benefits-trust-performance) ## Related Articles - [Highest Paying Tech Companies for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/220-highest-paying-tech-companies-for-developers) - [Making Data Warehouses Fast: A Developer’s Story](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/107-making-data-warehouses-fast-a-developer-s-story) - [Data Engineer Salary UK](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/253-data-engineer-salary-uk) - [Coffee with Developers - Maria Apazoglou - Making AI understandable for all in production](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/475-coffee-with-developers-maria-apazoglou-making-ai-understandable-for-all-in-production) - [Top Big Data Technologies That You Need to Know](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/108-top-big-data-technologies-that-you-need-to-know) - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift)