Principal Data Engineer

Job Posting Title:

Principal Data Engineer

Hiring Department:

Data to Insights

Position Open To:

All Applicants

Weekly Scheduled Hours:

40

FLSA Status:

Exempt

Earliest Start Date:

Immediately

Position Duration:

Expected to Continue Until Aug 31, 2026

Location:

Texas

Job Details:

The Data to Insights (D2I) Initiative at UT Austin is an investment to build a trusted, integrated, and scalable information infrastructure that transforms complex UT data into valued insights for data-informed decisions.

As a team member in the Data to Insights (D2I) Initiative, you will work with a cross-campus team using the latest cloud technologies to build a next-generation data ecosystem that will improve decision-making and advance the university’s mission. We believe the best ideas arise from collaborative work among colleagues from varied backgrounds and experiences. If you’re the type of person who loves to learn and wants to know your work has meaning, you may find your career home at UT Austin. Please note that this position is currently funded through August 31, 2026.

This position requires you to maintain internet service and a mobile phone with voice and data plans to be used when required for work.

This position provides life/work balance with typically a 40-hour work week and travel generally limited to training (e.g., conferences/courses).

Purpose

The Principal Data Engineer for the UT Data Hub improves university outcomes and advances the UT mission to transform lives for the benefit of society by increasing the usability and value of institutional data. You will be responsible for leading the data engineering team to innovate and implement the newest data engineering trends and best practices to create complex data pipelines within UT’s cloud data ecosystem in support of academic and administrative needs. In collaboration with our team of data professionals, you will help build and run a modern data hub to enable advanced data-driven decision making for UT. You will leverage your creativity to solve complex technical problems and build effective relationships through open communication within the team and outside partners.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Design, plan, develop and deploy production quality enterprise level data pipelines using Cloud technologies with a team of data engineers using new and emerging industry standard tools, frameworks, and best practices.
• Conduct and participate in code reviews for high-quality code.
• Contribute to Data Engineering, SDLC, process improvements standards by adhering and implementing industry best practices.
• Identify and address bottlenecks in data pipelines while looking for optimizations, performance, and scalability.
• Develop systems to ensure data quality, consistency, cost optimization and security compliances.
• Contribute to coding, debugging, and solving complex engineering challenges.

Project Management & Collaboration

• Provide technical leadership and mentor data engineering team members to encourage a collaborative and growth mindset.
• Collaborate with technical architects and groups across campus by presenting best practices to foster campus-wide modern technology innovation.
• Lead technical knowledge share sessions by discussing current industry trends in Data Engineering.

Communication

• Provide regular updates on project status, technical challenges, and business solutions to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Communicate technical design to all stakeholders while highlighting the pros and cons of different solutions for on-time project delivery.
• Ensure all project deliverables (technical, process, and best practices) are documented for future reference and training.

Innovation

• Coordinate research and development of advanced technology systems and development projects and build case or justification for such activity.
• Review and evaluate feasibility studies and prepare recommendations based on in-depth knowledge of problems and capabilities of potential approaches.
• Stay up to date with the latest tools, frameworks, and technologies in data engineering, recommending and implementing innovative solutions.

Other

• Participate in hiring and recruitment activities of new team members.
• Other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• BS or MS degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.
• 5 - 8 years of Data Engineering experience with Amazon Web Services.
• 3 years of experience in Cloud Architecture and Data Strategy, preferably in a large enterprise environment.
• Eight plus years of experience in designing, implementing, troubleshooting, and monitoring complex production data pipelines or enterprise software solutions.
• Proficient in designing scalable, high-performance data architecture and data pipelines.
• Expert programming skills in Python, CDK scripting and SQL knowledge.
• Experience in designing and implementing complex ETL or ELT pipelines in relational and non-relational databases including Data Lakes.
• Experience developing and implementing Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) systems.
• Five plus years of experience developing and implementing test-driven architecture solutions.
• Expert in systems analysis, design, development, quality assurance, and integration methodologies.
• Excellent problem solving, analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication to communicate both to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Self-motivated and able to organize work independently in a rapidly changing environment.

Relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate.

Preferred Qualifications

• Eight years of experience in Data Engineering or related field with at least five years of hands-on experience designing and building complex data pipelines using cloud-based infrastructure, preferably AWS Technologies.
• Five years of experience or more with Agile software development methodologies and tracking software.
• Experience in identifying and implementing software development methodologies.
• Experience with Data Lakes, Delta Lakes, Lakehouse, Spark, Hive, Apache Airflow, Testing Frameworks, Streaming Pipelines, Kafka etc., is a plus.

Salary Range

$125,000 - $143,712

Working Conditions

• May work around standard office conditions
• Repetitive use of a keyboard at a workstation
• Use of manual dexterity
• Up to 100% remote at employee discretion with office work environment also an option. Majority of team is located in Austin, TX, and working remotely with infrequent in-office presence.

Required Materials

• Resume/CV
• 3 work references with their contact information; at least one reference should be from a supervisor
• Letter of interest

Important for applicants who are NOT current university employees or contingent workers: You will be prompted to submit your resume the first time you apply, then you will be provided an option to upload a new Resume for subsequent applications. Any additional Required Materials (letter of interest, references, etc.) will be uploaded in the Application Questions section; you will be able to multi-select additional files. Before submitting your online job application, ensure that ALL Required Materials have been uploaded. Once your job application has been submitted, you cannot make changes.

Important for Current university employees and contingent workers: As a current university employee or contingent worker, you MUST apply within Workday by searching for Find UT Jobs. If you are a current University employee, log-in to Workday, navigate to your Worker Profile, click the Career link in the left hand navigation menu and then update the sections in your Professional Profile before you apply. This information will be pulled in to your application. The application is one page and you will be prompted to upload your resume. In addition, you must respond to the application questions presented to upload any additional Required Materials (letter of interest, references, etc.) that were noted above.

Employment Eligibility:

Regular staff who have been employed in their current position for the last six continuous months are eligible for openings being recruited for through University-Wide or Open Recruiting, to include both promotional opportunities and lateral transfers. Staff who are promotion/transfer eligible may apply for positions without supervisor approval.

Retirement Plan Eligibility:

The retirement plan for this position is Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), subject to the position being at least 20 hours per week and at least 135 days in length.

Background Checks:

A criminal history background check will be required for finalist(s) under consideration for this position.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

The University of Texas at Austin, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions.

Pay Transparency:

The University of Texas at Austin will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information.

Employment Eligibility Verification:

If hired, you will be required to complete the federal Employment Eligibility Verification I-9 form. You will be required to present acceptable and original documents to prove your identity and authorization to work in the United States. Documents need to be presented no later than the third day of employment. Failure to do so will result in loss of employment at the university.

E-Verify:

The University of Texas at Austin uses E-Verify to check the work authorization of all new hires effective May 2015. The university’s company ID number for purposes of E-Verify is 854197. For more information about E-Verify, please see the following:

• E-Verify Poster (English) (PDF)
• E-Verify Poster (Spanish) (PDF)
• Right To Work Poster (English) (PDF)
• Right To Work Poster (Spanish) (PDF)

Compliance:

Employees may be required to report violations of law under Title IX and the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act). If this position is identified as a Campus Security Authority (Clery Act), you will be notified and provided resources for reporting. Responsible employees under Title IX are defined and outlined in HOP-3031.

The Clery Act requires all prospective employees be notified of the availability of the Annual Security and Fire Safety report. You may access the most recent report here or obtain a copy at University Compliance Services, 1616 Guadalupe Street, UTA 2.206, Austin, Texas 78701.