Principal Data Engineer

Company Description

Nine is Australia’s largest locally owned media company – the home of Australia’s most trusted and loved brands spanning News, Sport, Lifestyle, and Entertainment. We pride ourselves on creating the best content, accessed by consumers when and how they want – across Publishing, Broadcasting and Digital.

Nine’s assets include the 9Network, major mastheads such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review, radio stations 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR, digital properties such as nine.com.au, 9Now, 9Honey, Pedestrian.TV, Drive, subscription video platform Stan and a majority investment in Domain Group.

Our Purpose: We shape culture by sparking conversations, challenging perspectives, and entertaining our communities.

We bring people together by celebrating the big occasions and connecting the everyday moments. Australia belongs here. We bring our purpose to life via three shared values: We walk the talk, turn over every stone and keep it human.

Job Description

At Nine, we build and manage the pipelines, applications, and infrastructure that power our data-driven future. As a Principal Data Engineer, you will be the technical authority and architect for our core data platforms, tackling our most significant challenges in data warehousing, modelling, and governance.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role for a seasoned expert who will set the vision for our data architecture. You will be instrumental in evolving our technical direction, elevating the skills of the entire data engineering team, and creating "golden path" examples that define excellence. Your work will directly influence our ability to derive insights and build intelligent products at scale.

Reporting to the Director of Technology - Data & AI, you will operate as a key technical authority and a peer to our data engineering managers and senior data product managers, providing the thought leadership that underpins our entire data strategy.

As the Principal Data Engineer, you will:

• Own the architectural vision for data: Continuously evolve our approach to data warehousing, data modelling (e.g., Kimball, Inmon, Data Vault), and data governance, establishing the patterns that will be used across the organisation.

• Serve as a Centre of Excellence: Act as a go-to expert for data engineering, providing practical advice, guidance, and mentorship to engineers across multiple teams and fostering a culture of technical excellence.

• Provide thought leadership and strategy: Design resilient, scalable data architectures that anticipate future needs. Lead initiatives on data governance, including cataloging, data quality, access management, and the build of a central semantic layer.

• Champion GenAI for Engineering Excellence: Drive the adoption and establish best practices for using Generative AI tools to boost engineering productivity and efficiency. This includes leveraging platforms like GitHub Copilot for code development and BigQuery's GenAI capabilities for accelerated data analysis and discovery.

• Lead by example on complex projects: Embed directly into our most critical projects to lead the design and architecture of scalable and performant data models, ensuring solutions are robust and fit within the broader organisational context.

• Drive technical innovation: Run proof-of-concepts for new technologies and patterns, developing standards for data transformations and pipeline development that other engineers will follow.

Qualifications

We are seeking a deeply skilled and strategic engineer with a passion for building robust data systems and a proven ability to elevate an entire engineering function. You are a natural mentor and a technical authority who thrives on architectural design, hands-on problem-solving, and strategic thinking.

What you’ll bring to the role:

Experience:

• Extensive experience in data engineering, with a proven track record of designing, building, and optimising large-scale data warehouses and platforms.
• Demonstrated experience leading the technical direction and architecture for complex, cross-functional data projects.
• Proven experience providing technical guidance, mentorship, and thought leadership to a team of skilled engineers.
• Extensive experience with modern, cloud-based data ecosystems.

Skills:

• Expert-level knowledge of data warehousing theory (e.g., Data Vault, Kimball, Inmon) and the ability to design intuitive and extensible data models.
• Expert-level expertise in SQL and high proficiency in Python.
• Deep, hands-on experience with a cloud data warehouse (BigQuery preferred), including administration and governance.
• Experience leveraging GenAI tools for engineering efficiency, such as GitHub Copilot for code generation and integrated platform tools in Google BigQuery.
• Proficiency with the modern data stack, including data transformation tools (dbt), infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), and workflow orchestration (Airflow).
• Proven ability to bridge business needs with data requirements and translate them into resilient technical architecture.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts for a diverse range of audiences.

Additional Information

Our employee benefits include:

• 18 weeks paid parental leave with no distinction between primary and secondary carers.
• Access to 'Employee Exclusives' program - a way of getting closer to our incredible brands, offering unique experiences, behind-the-scenes access, and awesome perks.
• Digital newspaper subscription to our mastheads.
• Annual gift voucher for Stan subscription.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion:

We're committed to a safe, respectful and inclusive Nine. From day one, you'll be encouraged to bring your whole self to work and will be supported to perform at your best.

We encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities, and of all ages, genders, nationalities, backgrounds and cultures as we recognise the importance and value of diverse perspectives. Should you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please advise us when you apply.

Work rights: Please note to apply for this role you must already have the right to lawfully work and live in Australia.