Lead/Principal Data Engineer

Lead / Principal Data Engineer – Marketing Technology (Contract) - Job#5799 Location: New York, New York Reports To: VP - Data Science and Data Engineering Type: Senior Individual Contributor Who You Are You are a seasoned senior level data engineer who thrives in dynamic, fast-paced environments. You’re comfortable working across a hybrid landscape of legacy systems and modern data architecture, and you know how to balance long-term planning with short-term urgency. You don’t get flustered by unexpected challenges—you respond with clarity, speed, and purpose. Whether it’s a well-scoped project or a bug that needs immediate resolution, you know how to prioritize, adapt, and deliver. You take initiative. You don’t wait for instructions—you assess, identify gaps, and act. You quickly familiarize yourself with our source systems, ingestion pipelines, and the processes that power marketing technology data operations. You integrate seamlessly into work management rhythms like daily standups, work intake, and scrums, and you contribute meaningfully from day one. Above all, you bring a solution-oriented, win-win mindset. You’re not just technically strong—you’re a proactive problem solver who owns outcomes and drives progress. What You'll Do • Rapidly onboard into our Martech data ecosystem—understanding source systems, ingestion flows, and operational processes. • Build and maintain scalable data pipelines across Martech, Loyalty, and Engineering teams. • Balance long-term projects with short-term reactive tasks, including urgent bug fixes and business-critical issues. • Identify gaps in data infrastructure or workflows and proactively propose and implement solutions. • Collaborate with product managers, analysts, and data scientists to ensure data availability and quality. • Participate in agile ceremonies and contribute to backlog grooming, sprint planning, and team reviews. Your Expertise Must Haves • Strong communication and stakeholder management skills • 7+ years of experience in data engineering, with a strong foundation in ETL design, cloud platforms, and real-time data processing. • Deep expertise in Snowflake, Airflow, dbt, Fivetran, AWS s3, lambda, Python, SQL • Previous experience stitching together data from multiple retail and ecommerce specific source systems • Experience working with implementation and data management for loyalty platforms, customer data platforms, marketing automation systems and ESPs is a must have. • Deep expertise in data modeling with dbt • Demonstrated ability to lead critical and complex platform migrations and new deployments What Sets You Apart • You’re self-driven and proactive—no daily task lists needed. • You know how to do discovery, diagnose and fill gaps. • You’re comfortable with urgency and know how to respond without losing momentum. • You bring a mindset of ownership, adaptability, commitment and collaborative problem-solving.