Principal Data Engineer

ABOUT THE ROLE Vomela is a full‑service visual communications agency that partners with global and local brands to create compelling brand solutions. As a Principal Data Engineer you will be the technical leader of our data engineering team, setting the architecture and strategy for our Microsoft Fabric‑based data platform. You will own the end‑to‑end data pipeline, from ingestion and transformation to semantic modeling and reporting, ensuring that every data product is reliable, performant, and governed. Your work will directly influence how the organization builds, scales, and trusts its data, and you will mentor teammates, influence stakeholders, and drive innovation across the data ecosystem. WHAT YOU'LL DO You will design and implement dimensional models, star and snowflake schemas, and slowly changing dimension strategies that become the single source of truth for business reporting. You will own master data engineering, creating golden record patterns and resolving cross‑system identities. You will design real‑time and near‑real‑time pipelines using Kafka, Confluent Cloud, and Fabric Event Streams, and you will optimize non‑streaming pipelines through intelligent scheduling and incremental loads. You will tune performance across the stack, from query optimization to Delta table compaction and Direct Lake readiness. You will apply operational engineering discipline, establishing observability, alerting, SLA definitions, and capacity planning. You will design and enforce controls for sensitive data, including financial, PII, and HIPAA requirements. You will translate business requirements into semantic models and report‑layer artifacts that are trusted by Power BI users, AI/ML developers, and application developers. You will define and enforce data contracts, ensuring schema stability, access patterns, and SLAs for each consumer class. You will own the developer experience of the platform, improving discoverability, documentation, and onboarding. Your code will be production‑ready, idempotent, and recoverable, and you will serve as the senior technical voice in code reviews. WHAT YOU'LL NEED You must have deep expertise in Microsoft Fabric, including Lakehouses, Notebooks, Dataflows Gen2, Event Streams, Semantic Models, and Direct Lake mode. You should be proficient in Power BI, DAX, and semantic model design. You need strong SQL skills in SQL Server, Azure SQL, and Postgres, with experience in query optimization, schema design, and stored procedures. You must be comfortable with Azure DevOps, Git workflows, and CI/CD for data pipelines. You should have demonstrated use of AI coding assistants in production, with the ability to evaluate and improve AI‑generated code. You should understand when AI accelerates work and when it introduces risk. Preferred qualifications include familiarity with Azure Data Factory, Synapse Analytics, ADLS Gen2, and Event Hubs; experience with Confluent Cloud or Apache Kafka; exposure to MDM platforms; and a background in business analysis, solutions architecture, or pre‑sales engineering. Microsoft Fabric or Azure Data Engineer certifications are a plus. WHY REMOTE Vomela embraces a distributed, asynchronous culture that empowers teams to work from anywhere while collaborating effectively across time zones. Our remote environment offers flexible schedules, allowing you to balance professional responsibilities with personal commitments. We provide the tools and support needed to maintain high productivity, including cloud‑based collaboration platforms, secure data access, and a culture that values results over hours logged. The remote model also expands our talent pool, enabling us to attract the best engineers worldwide. BENEFITS Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision) Retirement Plan (401k) with company match Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D) Paid Time Off and flexible holiday policy Short‑Term & Long‑Term Disability coverage Comprehensive Training & Development budget Wellness Resources and mental health support Remote stipend for home‑office setup and internet expenses.