Principal Data Engineer, People Data
Manager
Senior
3d Design Tools
Apache Airflow
Big Data
Bigdata
Cloud Data Warehouse
Cloud Operations
Cloud Platform
Cloud Platforms
Data
Data Analysis
Data Analytics
Data Architecture
Data Build Tool
Data Engineer
Data Engineering
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
Dataops
Engineer
Engineering
ETL
Informatica
Snowflake
SQL
Technical Lead
Job Description
Okta is building trusted identity experiences, and this Principal Data Engineer role helps power reliable people and workforce data across the employee lifecycle. You will architect, build, and maintain scalable data solutions for candidate and employee information, ensuring teams can access high-quality reference data with confidence. This Chicago-based hybrid role also offers a platform for long-term technical direction, mentorship, and cross-functional influence.
Compensation: USD 197,000 - 270,600 per year.
What you’ll do
- Design, build, and evolve high-scale data solutions that act as reference architecture and simplify data access across the organization.
- Create data quality frameworks including monitoring, anomaly detection, and alerting, with governance, lineage tracking, and change management rigor suited for externally reported metrics.
- Drive consistent data modeling patterns, naming conventions, documentation norms, and metric governance standards across data teams.
- Lead cross-functional technical initiatives across data verticals to accelerate delivery and strengthen data systems.
- Make sound technical decisions in ambiguous environments by balancing short-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.
- Raise the technical bar through mentoring senior engineers, leading cross-functional task forces, and strengthening a culture of engineering excellence and data-driven decision making.
- Stay current with the data landscape by adopting and advocating for emerging technologies and practices to guide the team’s long-term direction.
What you bring
- 10+ years of experience in data engineering in a senior or lead capacity. Experience with Federal government compliance and security requirements is highly desirable.
- Expert-level SQL plus hands-on experience with ETL/ELT tools such as Airflow and dbt.
- Experience with MPP databases including Snowflake and Redshift.
- Extensive hands-on experience with AWS services: S3, Lambda, EMR, ECR, and EKS.
- Expertise in HR data including candidate lifecycle, employee records, compensation, and organizational data.
- Experience designing data models for recruiting analytics, engagement signals, and workforce planning metrics.
- Bonus: familiarity with Workday data structures.
- Experience building and maintaining batch and real-time pipelines using tools such as Spark and Kafka.
- Deep experience with modern lakehouse and warehouse architectures (Databricks, Snowflake) and modern file formats (Iceberg, Delta).
- Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize or redesign workflows with measurable impact, such as efficiency gains and quality improvements.
- A track record of hands-on collaboration with Data Science, Business, and Product teams.
Technologies you’ll work with
SQL, Airflow, dbt, Snowflake, Redshift, AWS S3, AWS Lambda, AWS EMR, AWS ECR, AWS EKS, Spark, Kafka, Databricks, Iceberg, Delta.
The Okta experience
- Supporting Your Well-Being
- Driving Social Impact
- Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community
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