Principal Data Engineer

If you like providing efficient, effective solutions to complex challenges, join us at Ascent! Be at the heart of helping achieve extraordinary things with software and data for our customers!
 

**This position is available for residents in Lisbon or Porto (Portugal) and requires the person to be at the office a minimum of 2 days a week.

About Us

We are Ascent! and we help our customers solve problems, elevate, and do existing things better. We are on a mission to help our customers connect data, software, and purpose to create extraordinary outcomes. You could say we are a digital transformation business. 

We specialize in software product development, analytics, data science, IoT solutions, machine learning, DevOps optimization, and modernization of applications, data, and platforms. 

We work with incredible clients in all types of industries such as smart home devices, space exploration, beer manufacturing, finance, ecology, and logistics. We work with some of the sharpest minds in the brightest businesses and we employ the sharpest minds too! 

At Ascent, we also believe in fostering a vibrant office community where collaboration thrives and connections flourish. With our hybrid approach, we prioritize hiring individuals who reside in close proximity to our offices. Our aim is to cultivate a positive atmosphere and sense of belonging by facilitating easy access to the office. However, we welcome applicants from all other areas in the indicated countries, as we value diversity and recognize the unique perspectives each individual brings to our team. Join us in shaping a workplace where proximity enhances collaboration while inclusivity strengthens our community. 
Your Responsibilities

• Lead in-depth discussions to understand the business problems of our customers, ensuring solutions are tailored to address their specific needs effectively. 
• Develop a strategic approach and solution design that aligns with business objectives, emphasizing the importance of addressing business challenges rather than solely focusing on technical aspects. 
• Lead the development of data platforms and data engineering pipelines by establishing patterns and supporting the delivery team to ensure the quality of the solution.
• Support the design of conceptual, logical, and physical data models, leveraging best practices. 
• Triage new requirements, and provide impact assessments and appropriate estimates for amending data models in line with solution designs and requirements. 
• Demonstrate strong consulting skills, leveraging expertise to offer valuable insights and recommendations to clients, driving successful project outcomes. 
• Collaborate closely with internal teams to share knowledge and best practices, fostering a culture of continuous learning and development. 
• Contribute to the team's growth by interviewing candidates and sharing knowledge with the wider data engineering community in Ascent.

Skills and Experience

• Extensive experience with the implementation of complex applications across various data domains and platforms with optimization of performance and cost in mind.
• Strong experience in data modeling including multiple techniques for performant analytics workloads (e.g. Data Vault, Kimball, Star, denormalized, 3-NF) 
• Good understanding of Agile and DevOps principles, and strong experience with toolsets such as Azure DevOps and GitHub.
• In-depth understanding of Azure data engineering stacks, such as SQLDB, Azure Functions, Synapse, Data Factory, Data Lake Storage, Purview, and CosmosDB (Databricks and Snowflake will be considered highly advantageous).
• Proficient in distributed computing principles and implementations such as Spark and MPP.
• Solid understanding of data security principles, data governance, master data management, data quality, and data cataloging solutions.
• Strong experience with scripting languages, including SQL and Python. Other languages such as C# and R are considered beneficial.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code and configuration languages, including Terraform, PowerShell, Azure CLI, and YAML is considered a plus.
• Experience with near real-time analytics solutions, API, and data visualization development will be considered a plus.
• Experience running data engineering teams and coaching more junior data engineers to help them develop 
• Experience in a consulting environment, with engagement leadership ideally 

Working at Ascent

At Ascent we promote a healthy work-life balance by offering flexibility in where you work. We also promote well-being and provide access to Well Being Coaches. 
Your development and learning will be taken seriously, and we'll support your professional development with training and certification, with regular feedback and review. It is a fun, supportive and modern workplace where we really live by our company values of Empathy, Energy and Audacity! Ascent also offers a variety of benefits in each of our countries.
Ascent is an equal opportunities employer. We take intentional steps to ensure inclusion and belonging are something real here, not just something we talk about. No person will be treated less favorably because of their gender, pregnancy, and maternity status, marital or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ethnic origin, age, religion or belief, or disability status. If you require any reasonable accommodation, please let us know when you apply.