Principal Data Engineer

The Gig:

Virgin Voyages is looking for a Principal Data Engineer to set the technical direction for how we build, run, and modernize our data platform. You'll own platform architecture, pipeline design, reliability, and data quality, and you'll lead the way in making AI-assisted development the everyday standard for how our data engineers work.

This is a senior individual contributor role with no formal people management. You'll work with a high degree of autonomy across Data Engineering, MLOps, and DataOps, partnering with Analytics Engineering, machine learning teams, and stakeholders across the business to deliver data foundations that power both analytics and AI.

You will use tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex every day, and you know how to pair them with solid engineering discipline: version control, code review, automated testing, CI/CD, and observability. You'll help us build an end-to-end, AI-driven development pipeline and set the bar for howAI-generated code gets reviewed, tested, and shipped.

This opportunity sets sail as a fully remote role based in the United States of America. To come aboard, you must currently reside full-time in one of the following states: FL, GA, IL, NY, NC, PA, TN, and TX. Please note that this list is regularly evaluated and subject to change at any time. Occasional in-person meetings or team gatherings may take place at our Virgin Voyages Corporate Office in Plantation, FL.

What You'll Be Up To:

• Own and evolve the technical direction of the data engineering platform, including architecture, standards, and long-term platform evolution.
• Design and guide the development of scalable, reliable data pipelines and platform capabilities that support analytics and AI use cases.
• Lead the modernization of the data platform toward more scalable, managed solutions.
• Champion AI-assisted engineering across the team, driving daily use of tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex, and defining howAI-generated code is reviewed, tested, and deployed.
• Design and build an end-to-end, AI-driven development pipeline for the data engineering team, connecting AI agents and tools across planning, coding, testing, code review, CI/CD, and deployment.
• Define and enforce engineering standards, including version control workflows, code review practices, automated testing, and CI/CD for data pipelines and platform code.
• Build and improve observability across production data environments, including monitoring, alerting, logging, and lineage.
• Improve platform reliability, testing practices, and data quality across production systems.
• Create reusable frameworks, architecture patterns, and best practices that the wider data engineering function can build on.
• Partner with machine learning and related technical teams to support AI platform enablement and help shape MLOps practices.
• Collaborate with Data Engineering, Analytics Engineering, and stakeholders outside the core data organization to align technical solutions with business and platform needs.
• Contribute hands-on where it counts most, especially in building foundational services, frameworks, and platform capabilities.
• All other duties assigned

Superpowers Required:

• 10+ years of experience in data engineering or related data platform roles.
• Demonstrated experience designing and evolving modern data platforms, pipelines, and architecture.
• Strong SQL and Python skills.
• Hands-on, daily use ofAI coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex, with a track record of driving their adoption across an engineering team.
• Experience designing or building AI-driven development workflows that integrate AI agents and coding tools into testing, code review, and CI/CD.
• Solid software engineering practices: Git-based version control, code review, and automated testing (unit, integration, and data quality tests).
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines for data and platform code, with familiarity with Scala, Maven, and Bitbucket Pipelines.
• Strong experience implementing observability in production data environments, including monitoring, alerting, logging, and lineage.
• Proven ability to improve reliability and data quality in production data systems.
• Experience with cloud-based data platforms and managed services across a modern data stack.
• Experience establishing engineering standards, architecture patterns, and reusable technical frameworks.
• Experience enabling AI use cases through strong data engineering foundations.
• Proven ability to operate independently and lead technical direction with a high degree of autonomy.

Preferred:

• Experience with GCP, including BigQuery.
• Experience with dbt or other modern data transformation frameworks.
• Ops or DevOps knowledge, including familiarity with Cloud Run and Kubernetes.
• Exposure to MLOps concepts and collaboration with machine learning engineers.
• Experience building AI agents and agentic workflows, including Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers that connect AI tools to data platforms and internal systems.
• Familiarity with LLM application patterns such as RAG, embeddings, and vector search, plus evaluating and monitoring AI systems in production.
• Experience with DataOps practices and modern platform operating models.
• Experience in travel, hospitality, consumer platforms, or recommendations and personalization use cases.
• Strong stakeholder communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.

What Matters to Us:

At Virgin, your personality matters as much as how good you are at what you do. We want you to bring it to our hangout spot and help make the place even better. So, we won’t be surprised to hear that when people talk about you they say you are clever, on top of it, able to think ahead, intuitive, passionate and someone people respect and enjoy working with because you make things happen.

Virgin Voyages is committed to being an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages applications from qualified, eligible applicants regardless of their sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status, pregnancy and maternity. Our greatest strength comes from our ability to come together as unique individuals -- we seek to always embrace and celebrate our differences, providing an inclusive workplace environment that allows you to be your best self.

Virgin Voyages is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at Virgin Voyages via-email, the Internet or in any form and/or method without a valid written Statement of Work in place for this position from Virgin Voyages HR/Recruitment will be deemed the sole property of Virgin Voyages. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by Virgin Voyages as a result of the referral or through other means.