Principal Data Engineer

At Shutterfly, we make life’s experiences unforgettable. We believe there is extraordinary power in the self-expression. That’s why our family of brands helps customers create products and capture moments that reflect who they uniquely are.

We’re seeking a Principal Data Engineer/Systems Architect with 7–10 years of industry experience working in high-transaction, high-volume e-commerce environments. This role requires deep systems thinking to design, build, and fully own highly available, resilient distributed data architecture. The focus is on connecting our core data warehouse with critical Marketing and Customer Engagement platforms using fault-tolerant pipelines that handle massive scale. With your technical expertise, you will play a critical role in bringing in architectural efficiencies, establishing system reliability, and optimizing resources to deliver cost-saving architectural changes within our MarTech stack. 

What You'll Do Here: 

• Architect, design, and lead the implementation of scalable, resilient, and high-performance data pipelines using modern distributed systems. 
   
• Develop and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines in Python and SQL, specifically ensuring data consistency, idempotency, and high availability under heavy load. 
   
• Integrate and manage data synchronization with key marketing systems like CDPs, ESPs, and campaign management tools. 
   
• Implement bi-directional data flows that feed customer and campaign data into engagement platforms and capture performance/behavior data back into internal systems. 
   
• Establish and enforce best practices for data pipeline monitoring, alerting, and automated failure recovery (i.e., observability and resiliency). 
   
• Evaluate and make strategic decisions on data infrastructure components, including distributed messaging queues and workflow orchestration systems. 
   
• Partner with marketing, analytics, and CRM teams to translate requirements into robust technical solutions. 
   
• Rapidly gain an understanding of the entire stack, operationalize it, and thoroughly document architectural decisions and system design for long-term maintainability. 
   
• Ensure compliance with data governance, security, and privacy requirements. 

The Skills You'll Bring: 

• 7–10 years of professional experience as a data engineer, ideally at high-volume e-commerce or transactional platforms. 
   
• Expert level in Python (data scripting, automation, API integrations). 
   
• Strong SQL skills and experience with modern DW (e.g., Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery, etc.). 
   
• Deep expertise (3+ years hands-on) with distributed message queues (e.g., Apache Kafka, AWS Kinesis, RabbitMQ) for event-driven architecture and high-volume data streaming. 
   
• Expert understanding of system resiliency, fault tolerance, and disaster recovery in a data pipeline context (e.g., dead letter queues, retry mechanisms, exactly-once processing). 
   
• Proven experience designing and implementing complex, scalable, and cost-efficient AWS cloud data architectures. 
   
• Expert hands-on experience with workflow orchestration tools (e.g., Airflow, dbt) and internal/third-party API integrations. 
   
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to drive technical consensus and effectively communicate complex architectural trade-offs. 
   
• BS in Computer Science or equivalent. 

Location: This is a fully remote position based in US. The position requires coming onsite to the nearest hub location for first day onboarding.

Supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce is important to Shutterfly not only because it directly reflects our value of Embracing our Differences, but also because it’s the right thing to do for our business and for our people. We welcome all applicants and evaluate them based on their qualifications, without regard to age, race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, marital status, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, nationality, sex, or other characteristic covered by law. Learn more about our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on our Career Site.

This position will accept applications on an ongoing basis until filled.

The compensation package for this role is based on multiple factors, such as job level, responsibilities, location, and candidate experience. The base pay ranges included below are specific to the locations listed, and may not be applicable to other locations.

California : [$134,750-190,750]

Connecticut and New York: [$134,750-174,750

Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and Washington: [$134,750-161,750]

Nevada: [$126,750-174,750]

Maryland and New Jersey: [$145,500-174,750]

Hawaii : [$126,750-142,250]

This position may be eligible for a bonus incentive, health benefits, a 401K program, and other employee perks. More details about our company benefits can be found at https://shutterflyinc.com/benefits/.

This opportunity can be remote, but candidates must reside in a state in which Shutterfly is registered to do business. This includes all US states except District of Columbia, North Dakota, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wyoming.

This position will accept applications on an ongoing basis until filled.

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