Principal Data Engineer

*Principal Data Engineer* *Location: Warren, NJ. (2-3 days in-office)* *Contract $50 on W2* *Key Responsibilities* * Lead the architecture, design, and delivery of scalable enterprise data platforms using Azure Databricks, Delta Lake, and lakehouse patterns. * Build and optimize reliable batch and real-time data pipelines for analytics, reporting, and Al workloads. * Establish reusable engineering frameworks, coding standards, CI/CD practices, and performance and cost-optimization strategies. * Implement data governance, security, lineage, and quality controls, including Unity Catalog capabilities. * Provide technical leadership, mentor engineering teams, and collaborate with business, architecture, analytics, and data science stakeholders. *Key Skills* * *Azure Databricks and Lakehouse:* Databricks platform, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and enterprise Lakehouse architecture. * *Data Engineering:* Apache Spark, PySpark or Scala, advanced SQL, ETL/ELT design, and distributed processing. * *Azure Data Services:* Azure Data Factory, ADLS Gen2, Synapse Analytics, Key Vault, Monitor, and Log Analytics. * *Architecture and Governance:* Data modeling, security, data quality, lineage, scalability, and performance optimization. * *Engineering Leadership:* Azure DevOps, CI/CD, Agile delivery, stakeholder management, mentoring, and technical roadmap development. Pay: $50.00 - $51.00 per hour Benefits: * 401(k) * Dental insurance * Flexible schedule * Parental leave * Retirement plan * Tuition reimbursement Work Location: Hybrid remote in Warren, NJ 07059