TheDriveGroup logo

Principal Software Engineer

TheDriveGroup
Department:Software Engineer
Type:REMOTE
Region:Australia
Location:Australia
Experience:Mid-Senior Level
Skills:
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMSDATA PLATFORMAPACHE SPARKJVMSCALAJAVAKOTLINDATABRICKSSNOWFLAKECLOUDERAPALANTIRSQL
Share this job:

Job Description

Posted on: September 23, 2026

Principal Engineer - Fully Remote


Our clients looking for a Principal Engineer to be one of the most senior hands-on technical people in the company.


This is a building role, not a governance role. You'll split your time between solving complex problems within the platform and working directly with customers and SI partners on challenging implementations.


You'll have significant influence over product architecture, technical direction and engineering standards, without the people-management responsibility.


What you'll do

  • Own architecture across distributed query execution, federation, optimisation, connectors and deployment.
  • Write production code across the hardest parts of the platform.
  • Lead complex customer implementations, architecture and performance tuning.
  • Work directly with customer architects and SI partners on technical challenges.
  • Bring customer learnings back into the product and drive improvements.
  • Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across the team.


What we're looking for

  • 10+ years' software engineering experience, with a strong hands-on track record.
  • Deep distributed systems and data platform experience.
  • Strong Apache Spark knowledge, particularly internals, execution and query planning.
  • Strong JVM engineering skills — ideally Scala, or Java/Kotlin with a willingness to work in Scala.
  • Experience with platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, Cloudera, Palantir or similar.
  • Strong SQL, query optimisation and performance tuning skills.
  • Experience with Kubernetes, Linux, containers and enterprise identity.
  • Comfortable working directly with enterprise customers and technical stakeholders.
  • Australian work rights.


What's on offer

  • Competitive salary + equity
  • Remote-first across Australia
  • Significant technical autonomy and influence
  • Complex, genuinely interesting engineering problems
  • Professional development, conferences and open-source support


For more information or a confidential discussion, please contact angus@thedrivegroup.com.au


For The Latest Jobs, Tech News or to 'Introduce A Friend' for a $1000 Referral Fee - Follow Us On Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/thedrivegroup


TheDriveGroup is 100% committed to improving meaningful diversity in the technology industry.


Originally posted on LinkedIn

Apply now

Please let the company know that you found this position on our job board. This is a great way to support us, so we can keep posting cool jobs every day!

TheDriveGroup logo

TheDriveGroup

View company page
ResumeBuilder.careers logo

ResumeBuilder.careers

Get ResumeBuilder.careers on your phone!

SIMILAR JOBS
TheDriveGroup logo

Principal Software Engineer

TheDriveGroup
Just now
Software Engineer
Remote (Australia)
Australia
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMSDATA PLATFORMAPACHE SPARK+9 more
Axon logo

Graduate Site Reliability Engineer

Axon
Just now
Software Engineer
Remote (Australia)
Australia
SITE RELIABILITY ENGINEERINGCLOUD PLATFORMSLINUX+3 more
Terrific logo

Product Engineer — Monetization & Commerce Data

Terrific
Just now
Software Engineer
Remote (UK)
London, England, United Kingdom
PRODUCT ENGINEERINGMONETIZATIONCOMMERCE DATA+5 more
Coaxial AI logo

Machine Learning Engineer - Robotics

Coaxial AI
Just now
Software Engineer
Remote (Australia)
Greater Melbourne Area
PYTHONPYTORCHJAX+6 more
CrowdStrike logo

Sr. Engineer II - Windows Sensor (Remote, EUR)

CrowdStrike
Just now
Software Engineer
Remote (UK)
United Kingdom
WINDOWSCYBERSECURITYENDPOINT SECURITY+6 more