Principal Data Engineer

It takes powerful technology to connect our brands and partners with an audience of nearly 900 million. Whether you're designing groundbreaking architecture for mobile apps, leading the evolution of our massive ad tech stacks, or pioneering algorithms to process trillions of data points a day, what you do here will have a transformative impact on our business—and the world. Want in?

A Little About Us:

The Yahoo! Consumer Data Team is developing a unified, cloud-native platform for all Yahoo user data. We simplify how teams access and utilize Yahoo first-party and third-party data while strengthening compliance. Our work empowers business units to enhance experimentation, monetization, marketing, and personalization with greater efficiency and reduced risk.

A Little About You:

The ideal candidate will have a proven track record in engineering roles, particularly in large organizations, with a strong ability to handle complex data challenges. They should be passionate about leveraging data to drive business outcomes and possess excellent collaboration skills to work effectively across teams.

As part of our Audience Platform, you'll play a key role in helping Yahoo leverage first-party and third-party data to build comprehensive audience solutions essential for experimentation, monetization, marketing, and personalization. This large-scale initiative offers you the chance to tackle significant technical challenges while making impactful contributions to how we responsibly utilize data assets across our ecosystem.

Responsibilities:

• Strategic Vision: Define the technical architecture roadmap for User Data platforms that aligns with Yahoo's long-term business objectives

• Cross-Organization Leadership: Drive innovation initiatives that span multiple engineering teams and technical domains

• System Architecture: Design distributed data systems that process billions of events daily with industry-leading performance metrics

• Technical Governance: Establish enterprise-wide standards for data quality, security, and compliance

• Innovation Leadership: Pioneer next-generation data processing capabilities that deliver competitive advantages in user personalization

• Performance Engineering: Create frameworks and methodologies that systematically improve platform scalability and efficiency

• Critical Problem Resolution: Lead resolution of complex technical challenges that have organization-wide impact

• Executive Communication: Effectively represent technical considerations in executive-level strategy discussions

• Talent Development: Mentor senior engineers and technical leads to build organizational technical depth

• Industry Influence: Represent Yahoo in technical conferences and industry forums as a thought leader

• Technical Due Diligence: Lead technical evaluation of potential acquisitions, partnerships, and major technology investments

• Technology Strategy: Anticipate emerging technology trends and guide Yahoo's technical positioning

Requirements:

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with strong emphasis on system design and backend development

• 3+ years of experience developing large-scale analytics or data processing systems for enterprise applications

• 2+ years hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform ecosystem (BigQuery, Dataproc, Composer, Dataflow) or AWS equivalent

• 2+ years working with Hadoop technologies and distributed computing frameworks (Spark, Kafka, Hive)

• Proven track record implementing and optimizing data pipelines that process terabyte-scale datasets

• Expert-level fundamentals: algorithms, distributed computing, data structures, database architecture

• Advanced proficiency in at least one object-oriented programming language among Java, Python, or Scala, with demonstrated ability to architect complex applications and data systems. Strong SQL expertise for sophisticated data operations

• Experience leading technical teams and mentoring junior engineers

• Experience with audience segmentation or personalization technologies is a plus

The material job duties and responsibilities of this role include those listed above, as well as adhering to Yahoo policies, exercising sound judgment, working effectively, safely, and inclusively with others, exhibiting trustworthiness, and meeting expectations. Additionally, it involves safeguarding business operations and brand integrity.

At Yahoo, we offer flexible hybrid work options that our employees love! While most roles don’t require regular office attendance, you may occasionally be asked to attend in-person events or team sessions. You’ll always get notice to make arrangements. Your recruiter will let you know if a specific job requires regular attendance at a Yahoo office or facility. If you have any questions about how this applies to the role, don't hesitate to ask the recruiter!

Yahoo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. Yahoo will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment in a manner consistent with applicable law. Yahoo is committed to creating an accessible environment for all candidates during the application process and for employees throughout their employment. If you need accessibility assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability, please submit a request via the Accommodation Request Form (www.yahooinc.com/careers/contact-us.html) or call +1.866.772.3182. Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

We believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace strengthens Yahoo and deepens our relationships. When you support everyone to be their best selves, they spark discovery, innovation and creativity. Among other efforts, our 11 employee resource groups (ERGs) enhance a culture of belonging with programs, events and fellowship that help educate, support and create a workplace where all feel welcome.

Currently work for Yahoo? Please apply on our internal career site.