Principal Software Engineer

**Principal Engineer – Scala / Spark / Distributed Systems** **Fully Remote (Australia) | Competitive Salary + Equity** We're working with an innovative Australian technology company building a next-generation distributed data platform, and they're looking for a highly experienced, hands-on Principal Engineer to join their senior engineering team. The platform enables enterprises to query and access data across multiple systems without moving everything into a central warehouse. This is a genuinely hands-on engineering role, not a governance or people management position. You'll split your time between building and improving the core platform and working directly with enterprise customers and implementation partners on complex technical challenges. You'll have significant influence over product architecture, technical direction and engineering standards. **What you'll do** * Design and build core components across distributed query execution, federation, optimisation and connector frameworks. * Remain hands-on, writing production code and solving complex engineering challenges. * Work directly with enterprise customers and technical partners on architecture, integration and performance. * Drive improvements to platform scalability, reliability and performance. * Influence technical direction, mentor engineers and help shape the product. **What we're looking for** * 8+ years' software engineering experience, ideally at Staff or Principal level. * Strong experience building distributed systems and data platforms. * Deep Apache Spark experience, particularly execution, query planning and optimisation. * Strong Scala, Java or Kotlin engineering skills. * Experience with Databricks, Snowflake, Cloudera, Trino, Presto, Dremio or similar platforms. * Strong SQL and query performance tuning experience. * Experience with Kubernetes, Linux and containerised environments. * Comfortable engaging directly with enterprise customers and technical stakeholders. * Australian work rights. **What's on offer** * Competitive salary + equity * Fully remote across Australia * Significant technical ownership and influence * Complex engineering challenges involving distributed systems and large-scale data platforms * Opportunity to shape a growing technology product * 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.*