{"id":1647578,"url":"https://alion.io/job/equinix-principal-data-engineer","title":"Principal Data Engineer","company":{"id":7655,"name":"Equinix","domain":"equinix.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/equinix","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":null,"truth_index":null},"role":"Data Science","role_family":"Data Science","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"inferred_city","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":["Bengaluru, India"],"countries":["IN"],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":28000,"max_usd":48000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_cell","sample_n":17},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Airflow","optional":false},{"name":"Apache Kafka","optional":false},{"name":"BigQuery","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"dbt","optional":false},{"name":"Firestore","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":false},{"name":"Google BigQuery","optional":false},{"name":"Google Bigtable","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"LLM Guardrails","optional":false},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":false},{"name":"MySQL","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Scala","optional":false},{"name":"Spark","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"Zero Trust","optional":false},{"name":"Feature Store","optional":true},{"name":"Looker","optional":true},{"name":"Power BI","optional":true},{"name":"Tableau","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-25T20:18:07Z","employer_posted_date":null,"last_verified_at":"2026-08-25T20:18:07Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":39,"trust":{"level":"not_scored","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":39},"description":"Who are we?\n\nEquinix is the world's digital infrastructure company®, shortening the path to connectivity to enable the innovations that enrich our work, life and planet.\n\nA place where bold ideas are welcomed, human connection is valued, and everyone has the opportunity to shape their future.\n\nHelp us challenge assumptions, uncover bias, and remove barriers-because progress starts with fresh ideas. You'll find belonging, purpose, and a team that welcomes you-because when you feel valued, you're empowered to do your best work.\n\nJob Summary\n\nAs a Principal Data Engineer at Equinix, you will be responsible for driving end-to-end delivery of enterprise-scale data solutions on Google Cloud Platform. This role combines hands-on technical expertise, requiring you to design sophisticated system architectures, lead cross-functional initiatives, and mentor data engineers. You will act as a trusted technical advisor for the team championing innovation across GCP, Data Engineering, AI, Agentic AI, and Model Context Protocol (MCP). The ideal candidate possesses unparalleled technical depth, exceptional strategic thinking, and a demonstrated history of delivering transformational data platform capabilities at a global scale.\n\nResponsibilities\n\nSystem Design & Architecture Leadership\n\nArchitect and evolve cloud-native, petabyte-scale data platforms and data products, with clearly defined and measurable SLOs for data freshness, availability, and reliability\nDesign data solutions balancing scalability, performance, cost, and operational excellence through clear architectural trade-offs\nEstablish reference architectures, architectural guardrails, and engineering standards adopted organization-wide\nLead architectural governance across all data engineering squads, ensuring consistency, scalability, and security\nEvaluate and adopt emerging technologies (including Agentic AI/LLM and real-time systems) to improve engineering productivity and business outcomes\nDrive adoption of domain-oriented data architecture (e.g., data mesh principles) across business domains to enable ownership, consistency, and reuse\n\nTechnical Solutioning & Innovation\n\nDesign scalable data solutions using modern cloud-native technologies (e.g., BigQuery, Dataflow, dbt/Dataform, Pub/Sub), selecting the right tools based on problem context\nOwn end-to-end delivery of complex data engineering initiatives from design through production, and continuous evolution.\nfor real-time streaming, event-driven architectures, and unified batch-streaming pipelines at petabyte scale\nEvaluate and adopt AI/LLM capabilities to improve engineering productivity and enable intelligent data consumption, using standard interfaces (e.g., Model Context Protocol) to integrate AI with data systems\nEstablish engineering excellence frameworks covering performance engineering, cost governance, reliability, and observability\nLead proof-of-concept and rapid prototyping of breakthrough technologies before scaling org-wide\n\nTeam Leadership & Mentorship\n\nServe as a technical role model and multiplier - elevating the capabilities of Senior Staff, Staff, and Data Engineers across the organization\nLead org-wide engineering communities of practice and knowledge-sharing initiatives\nPartner with engineering managers and HR to drive technical hiring strategy and raise the engineering talent bar\nDrive culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and continuous learning\nEstablish mentorship programs that systematically grow the next generation of technical leaders\n\nData Governance & Compliance\n\nArchitect automated data quality platforms, end-to-end lineage tracking, and enterprise metadata management systems\nEnsure compliance with GDPR, SOX, and emerging global data regulations through proactive architecture and policy design\nLead privacy-by-design initiatives, zero-trust data access models, and data anonymization at scale\nEstablish cross-cloud security standards and enforce them through automated policy guardrails\nDesign privacy-preserving techniques, data anonymization, and secure data sharing mechanisms\n\nStrategic Influence & Stakeholder Management\n\nPartner with business stakeholders to translate strategic objectives into scalable technical solutions\nLead cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple engineering teams and business units\nPresent technical concepts and architectural decisions to executive leadership\nRepresent Equinix externally - at industry conferences, in open-source communities, and in strategic vendor partnerships\nDrive build-vs-buy decisions, vendor evaluation, and strategic technology partnerships at the enterprise level\n\nQualifications\n\nTechnical Expertise\n\nGCP Platform Mastery: 8+ years of hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform, including deep expertise in BigQuery (advanced SQL, scripting, optimization, ML integration), Cloud Dataflow, Cloud Composer, Cloud Storage, Pub/Sub, Dataproc, and Vertex AI\nProgramming Excellence: Expert-level Python/Java programming, proficiency in Python/Scala for Spark development\nAdvanced Data Technologies: Deep expertise in Apache Beam, Apache Spark, Airflow, Kafka, and distributed computing architectures\nInfrastructure: Extensive experience with Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud infrastructure management\nDatabase & Data Modeling: Advanced knowledge of relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL systems (BigTable, Firestore, MongoDB); expertise in data modeling, normalization, and performance optimization\nSystem Design: Proven ability to architect and deliver distributed, fault-tolerant, globally distributed data systems with rigorous security and cost governance\nAI/ML Integration: Deep experience with MLOps, feature engineering platforms, model serving infrastructure, and integrating LLM-powered capabilities into production data pipelines\n\nProfessional Experience & Leadership\n\nMaster's or bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field; Master's degree strongly preferred\n15+ years of Data engineering experience with 8+ years specifically on Google Cloud Platform\nProven track record of leading end-to-end delivery of complex, enterprise-scale data platform initiatives\nExperience designing and implementing data governance, compliance, and security frameworks\nStrong architectural thinking with ability to make sound technical decisions and trade-offs\nProven ability to translate business requirements into scalable technical architectures and solutions\nStrong business acumen - ability to connect technical architecture decisions to measurable business outcomes\nSolve complex, ambiguous data platform challenges and drive decisions that improve system reliability, performance, and cost at scale\n\nPreferred Qualifications\n\nGoogle Cloud Professional Data Engineer and Cloud Architect certifications\nHands-on experience with Agentic AI frameworks, LLM orchestration, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) in production environments\nPublished thought leadership - technical blog posts, conference talks, or open-source contributions in data engineering\nExperience with feature stores, model serving infrastructure, and AI/ML observability\nUnderstanding of data science workflows, statistical analysis, and advanced analytics\nExperience with BI and visualization tools (Looker, Tableau, Power BI)\nContributions to industry standards bodies, open-source foundations, or emerging technology working groups\nExperience with multi-cloud or hybrid cloud architectures and data portability strategies\nKnowledge of data mesh, data fabric, or other modern data architecture patterns\n\nEquinix is committed to ensuring that our employment process is open to all individuals, including those with a disability. If you are a qualified candidate and need assistance or an accommodation, please let us know by completing this form.\n\nEquinix is an Equal Employment Opportunity and, in the U.S., an Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to unlawful consideration of race, color, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, place of birth, citizenship, sex, pregnancy / childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic partnership status, age, veteran or military status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, political / organizational affiliation, status as a victim or family member of a victim of crime or abuse, or any other status protected by applicable law.\n\nWe use artificial intelligence in our hiring process. Learn more here.\nThis posting is for a backfill position, meaning it is to fill an existing vacancy within our organization.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8715,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Continuous learning"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Data Centers & Colocation","Network Interconnect"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-02T00:00:28Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":15,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":0.6,"p_active":0.696,"p_room":0.35,"age_days":38,"expected_fill_days":17,"reasons":["seen:38","velocity","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-10-03T05:45:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/equinix-principal-data-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/equinix-principal-data-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-04T01:06:21Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1420,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":3580,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-05T00:00:00Z"}}}