Principal Data Engineer – Technical Lead

Unqork

Principal Data Engineer at Unqork designing AI-native applications and building services for high-performance data operations. Leading a team and fostering an inclusive engineering culture.

Posted 6/5/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $238,600 - $298,300 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

ApacheAWSAzureCloudDistributed SystemsDockerGoGoogle Cloud PlatformGraphQLJavaJavaScriptKafkaKubernetesMicroservicesMongoDBNode.jsNoSQLPythonRedisSparkSQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Act as a player-coach, providing technical direction, architectural guidance, and daily mentorship to a focused team of 3–5 engineers. Conduct thoughtful code reviews and foster professional growth within your squad.
Design and implement sophisticated Data Access Layers (DAL) and custom ODMs to translate platform-generated, SQL-like queries into high-performance MongoDB BSON operations and aggregation pipelines.
Build and maintain middleware that ensures Unqork’s core business logic remains storage-agnostic, enabling seamless modularity and flexibility across different data storage mechanisms.
Architect and scale a multi-tenant, secure MongoDB ecosystem. Lead strategies for ensure high availability while performing deep-dive execution plan analysis (IXSCAN vs. COLLSCAN) to optimize query performance.
Plan and architect hybrid data architectures to support operation, transactional and analytical schema and database systems.
Use Node.js and JavaScript to build robust microservices (typically GraphQL) and internal libraries that integrate dynamic, metadata-driven data patterns into the Unqork no-code runtime.
Design schemas and declarative models that allow non-technical users to build complex application logic without compromising data integrity or system performance.
Architect real-time and batch data pipelines using Apache Kafka and Spark to facilitate data transformation and movement between relational and NoSQL systems.
Partner with Platform and Backend engineers to standardize data interaction patterns, ensuring high-scale, API-driven performance across the entire enterprise cloud.
Partner closely with the Product Management team to influence the product roadmap, translate business requirements into technical specifications, and ensure alignment between product goals and engineering execution

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science/ Master’s or above preferred
10+ Years of experience in backend, data, or platform engineering, with a proven track record of solving complex latency and implementation challenges for systems supporting millions of users.
2+ Years of experience in a Technical Lead or Player-Coach capacity, with demonstrated success managing, mentoring, and steering a small team of engineers while remaining hands-on in the codebase.
Deep, hands-on proficiency with SQL database systems (PostGress), search systems (e.g. Elastic) AND with MongoDB/Atlas, including complex aggregation pipelines, BSON data modeling, sharding, replica sets, and advanced query performance tuning.
Strong experience building Data Access Layers (DAL), custom ODMs, or query translation engines that successfully decouple application logic from underlying storage systems.
High proficiency in Node.js or other major backend languages (Python, Java, or Go) to build high-scale, event-driven architectures.
Direct experience implementing Redis (caching/TTL strategies) and Atlas Search (Lucene) to optimize data retrieval and discovery.
Advanced knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and distributed systems, including experience with containerization (Docker/Kubernetes).
Familiarity with SQL-to-NoSQL translation patterns and a background in building internal developer platforms or metadata-driven systems (e.g., no-code/low-code).
An AI-forward mindset: You are an avid user of AI tools and are passionate about exploring how AI can automate workflows, enhance creativity, and increase your personal impact.

Benefits

Comp & perks

💻 Work from home with a remote-first community
🏝 Unlimited PTO (and the encouragement to use it)
📝 Student loan payback program
🏥 100% employer-covered medical, dental, and vision options available to you and your dependents
💸 Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
🏠 Monthly stipend toward your WFH setup, vacation, development and more
💰 Employer-sponsored 401(k) with contribution match
🏋🏻‍♀️ Subsidized ClassPass Membership
🍼 Generous Paid Parental Leave

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

MongoDBSQLNode.jsJavaScriptApache KafkaSparkPostgreSQLRedisGraphQLData Access Layers

Soft Skills

mentorshiptechnical directionarchitectural guidanceteam managementcollaborationinfluencing product roadmapproblem-solvingcommunicationprofessional growthhands-on leadership

Certifications

Bachelor's Degree in Computer ScienceMaster’s Degree in Computer Science