Principal Data Engineer

THE ROLE & THE TEAM

As a Principal Data Engineer in our team, you will serve as the data architecture, data modeling, and engineering backbone that powers our analytics, statistical modeling, and data-driven products. You will transform complex, high-volume upstream datasets, including event tracking, into clean data layers utilized directly by Applied Scientists and Analysts. Your work will bridge the gap between raw data streams and production execution, translating complex upstream event signals into high-impact modeling inputs.

Unlike a traditional data engineering role focused solely on infrastructure, this position carries an equally important mandate in data modeling and collaborative model productionization. You will work side-by-side with Applied Scientists to operationalize prototype models, ranging from classical statistical frameworks to machine learning, ensuring critical structural and architectural data choices are made to run them reliably at scale. You will collaborate closely with Applied Scientists, Analysts, Data Engineers, Product Managers, and upstream engineering stakeholders across the organization.

WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)

• Identify relevant tracking events across complex streams, making intentional data modeling choices to build high-quality, standardized, and well-documented data products for downstream scientists and analysts.
• Partner directly with Applied Scientists to transform model prototypes (statistical or ML) into robust, maintainable, and low-latency production pipelines.
• Lead data modeling strategy across production datasets and model pipelines, making critical structural and schema decisions to ensure long-term performance, correctness, and maintainability.
• Design, build, and optimize pipelines, establishing rigorous standards for data quality, testability, monitoring, and pipeline health.
• Set engineering standards, mentor team members, and drive large-scale data architecture initiatives across multidisciplinary teams.

WE’D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF

• You have a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or equivalent practical experience in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related quantitative field with 6+ years of relevant industry experience.
• You have led the design of pipelines or data platforms that several teams use, and can show measurable gains in reliability or cost.
• You have proven experience operationalizing prototype models developed by Applied Scientists into production execution environments.
• Strong Pyspark, Python and SQL skills, including maintainable code, software design principles, unit testing, debugging, and code reviews.
• Proven experience building and operating data pipelines, covering batch processing and real-time or streaming workloads, using technologies such as Apache Airflow, Apache Spark, and Apache Flink or equivalent frameworks.
• Strong understanding of databases, data modeling, distributed processing, and query and storage performance optimization.
• Experience operating production data pipelines, including monitoring, alerting, incident management, root cause analysis, and reliability and cost optimization. Hands-on CI/CD and cloud infrastructure, ideally AWS.
• Experience with statistical data modeling

OUR OFFER

Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.

• 27 days of holiday a year to start for full-time employees (+1 day for every calendar year up to 30 days)
• 40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners
• Family support, including counselling and dedicated services for parents and carers
• Company pension scheme
• Employee shares programme
• Health and wellbeing options, including Wellhub
• Mental health support and coaching
• Development through our training platform and biannual peer-to-peer review
• 2 paid volunteering days a year
• Relocation assistance (subject to prior agreement)

INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN

If you think you have what it takes, we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every single requirement. You may just be the right candidate for this or other roles!

At Zalando, our vision is to be the leading European technology platform for fashion and lifestyle – one that thrives on diversity and is truly inclusive by design. We believe that diverse teams fuel innovation and creativity, and we actively seek out talent from all backgrounds.

We actively seek to reduce bias in our hiring and employment processes, focusing on your qualifications, skills, and contributions. To support this, we kindly ask that you refrain from including personal details such as your photo, age, or marital status in your CV, ensuring a fair and equitable evaluation based solely on your abilities and potential.

We are committed to providing an exceptional and accessible candidate experience for everyone. If you require any accommodations to support you throughout the hiring process, please let us know – we are here to assist you.

Discover more about our commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/our-culture/diversity-and-inclusion

Please note that all applications from this job page must be completed using the online form - we do not accept applications via e-mail. Once reviewed, our recruiters will contact applicants via an official Zalando email address (@zalando.de).

In some cases we also work with a selection of headhunters and agencies to fill specific roles. Please note that neither Zalando nor our recruiting partners will ask for any kind of payment to apply for a job or attend an interview.

If you have any questions about our recruitment process, please take a look at our FAQ page.

Software Engineering

Our Software Engineering teams deploy software extensively, managing a broad set of applications and conducting thousands of deployments per week. The Software Engineering team enables Zalando as Europe’s number one multi-brand, digital platform for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle for our partners and customers. As a Zalando Software Engineer, you’ll be part of a community of thousands of colleagues across Europe.

Learn More

Software Engineering

About Zalando

It’s the perfect time to join Zalando on our journey to build the leading pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce. Help us offer an inspiring and quality multi-brand shopping experience for fashion and lifestyle products to about 50 million active customers in 25 markets. Or be part of our logistic infrastructure, software or service capabilities to help brands and retailers run and scale their entire e-commerce business, on or off Zalando. Join our Zalando ecosystem, to enable positive change for the fashion and lifestyle industry.

Learn more about our culture