Principal Platform Engineer (m/f/d)

Job Description

Shopware is a leading e-commerce system that enables companies worldwide to scale quickly and efficiently in digital commerce.

As a forward-looking open-source solution, Shopware is already used by some of the largest European brands, retailers, and manufacturers in the B2C and B2B sectors.

We are looking for a

Principal Platform Engineer (m/f/d) for the development and operation of our Data Platform – the infrastructure for data ingestion, storage, and runtime environments on which all data pipelines at Shopware run.

You will be responsible for its architecture and reliability: from CDC data ingestion through a three-tier data lake to the orchestration platform.

Your work enables service teams and management to better understand our customers and products.

At the same time, you create the technical foundation to effectively enforce data governance and compliance requirements.

You will work closely with Data & AI, who develop data pipelines on the platform you operate.

In the Service Enablement Team, you ensure that the same golden paths and quality standards apply to the Data Platform as to the rest of the Service Platform.

This position is an experienced specialist track without personnel responsibility.

It is important that you enjoy collaborating with many stakeholders, colleagues, and partners.

Your Responsibilities

• Data ingestion: CDC ingestion via DMS/Lambda into the raw area of S3 as well as responsibility for raw schema and data contracts.

Currently, the platform encompasses 13 domains and around 180 schemas across three levels. 11 CDC sources are already running productively, with more to come.

• Storage and orchestration: Responsibility for the orchestration platform provided by Terraform based on Step Functions, Event Bridge, and Glue across all three lake levels (Raw, Curated, and Aggregated) as well as for the associated CDC Terraform modules.
• Data catalog infrastructure: Operation and provision of Open Metadata.

This includes the catalog infrastructure and the separation between operation and usage as in the lake levels.

Data & AI will complement this with dataset descriptions, glossaries, and stewardship content.

• Tooling infrastructure: Provision and operation of Superset, the tool for teams for data queries and visualizations.
• Pipeline delineation: clear code boundaries, a merge-blocking contract check, and a clear rule for incident forwarding: You will be notified or alerted for infrastructure issues, not for errors in pipeline logic.
• Reliability: Establishing observability and operational excellence for the Data Platform, including with Datadog, incident response, as well as SLOs and SLIs.

You will take on the on-call duty; the compensation for this will be in line with other teams from day one.

• Governance and compliance mechanisms: The policies themselves – such as classification standards, retention rules, and handling of GDPR and data protection requests – are the responsibility of Legal/Compliance or a data protection-related function outside of SET and Data & AI.

You do not set these policies but implement the necessary architecture: retention periods, access controls, classification metadata, and forwarding of deletion requests.

• Cross-platform consistency: Collaborate with the Principal Platform Engineer for infrastructure to ensure that the Data Platform achieves the same self-service philosophy and maturity level as the rest of the platform.

What You Bring

• Solid practical AWS experience with Glue, Athena, Step Functions, Event Bridge, Lake Formation, and S3, as well as extensive Terraform experience in creating and evolving shared modules.
• Practical experience with CDC pipelines and an Iceberg-based lakehouse architecture with the levels Raw, Curated, and Aggregated. This format is currently in productive use.
• Familiarity with Kafka-based event streaming (MSK, Glue Schema Registry) for application-level events that land alongside CDC data in the platform.
• Confidence in operating a platform that other teams depend on: experience with incident response and SLOs, as well as the judgment to capture individual requirements in the backlog rather than implementing them ad hoc.
• Strong cross-team communication: You work directly with Data & AI to keep the boundaries between infrastructure and pipeline logic clear and coordinate with the Principal Platform Engineer for infrastructure on cross-cutting standards.

Neither of these relationships is a reporting line.

• A strong understanding of what sustainably anchors a data-driven culture: leaders who act based on metrics, organization-wide data literacy, infrastructure accessible to all target groups, and data as a communal resource.
• You communicate confidently with leadership and proactively address conflicts and risks instead of waiting to be asked.
• You communicate clearly and directly in writing and can represent and justify technical positions to engineering colleagues as well as non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with dbt (dbt-athena) or Spark/py Spark – enough to constructively discuss where the boundary between infrastructure and pipeline logic should lie in the future.
• Experience in building an on-call service for a team that previously did not have one.
• Experience in direct collaboration with legal and compliance stakeholders: translating retention or data classification requirements into concrete infrastructure decisions – and not just knowing that such requirements exist.

What We Offer You

• Company culture: Open culture, flat hierarchies, initiative is encouraged.
• Employment contracts: Permanent positions offer long-term security.
• Flexibility: Flexible working hours and options for mobile work and full-remote contracts.
• Equipment: Free choice of work hardware.
• Onboarding: Well-structured onboarding with support from a personal "buddy".
• Work environment: Inspiring environment with engaged colleagues and a dynamic community.
• Development opportunities: Diverse opportunities for personal growth and development.
• Additional benefits: Attractive perks such as company pension schemes, health programs, and regular team events.

• and much more!

You can get a detailed insight on our career page.

Your contact person for this position is Yanina Schröer, who is happy to assist you with any questions!

The protection of your personal data is our top priority. You can find our applicant information here.

Skills

• Terraform
• Kafka
• AWS Glue
• Athena
• Step Functions
• Event Bridge
• Lake Formation
• CDC
• Incident Response
• SLOs
• Data Governance
• Data Compliance
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