The Role
As a Principal Software Engineer on our Data Feed Platform team (Direct – Data & Research), you will partner with product owners and engineering teams to shape the technical direction of our data engineering capability. Together, you will migrate our file-based products to a unified, cloud-native data platform — architecting highly governed data pipelines, feed generation systems, and large-scale data delivery infrastructure.
This is a senior individual contributor role reporting to the Director of Technology. You will serve as a technical thought leader for a team of engineers — owning the end-to-end data platform architecture, from ingestion and transformation through to client-facing data products. You will define best practices for data governance, data modeling, performance optimization, and data reliability across the entire product lifecycle, while mentoring engineers and fostering continuous improvement within the data engineering discipline.
If your background is in data engineering, data platform development, or building production-grade data systems at scale, this role was designed for you.
Location: Toronto, ON (Hybrid-4 days in Office)
We intentionally prioritize in-person collaboration, as we've found it strengthens creative quality, alignment, and team momentum.
Job Responsibilities
- Lead and provide deep technical direction across data feeds and the data engineering function, guiding architectural decisions across platforms.
- Architect the platform consolidation strategy, migrating legacy feed products onto a unified, governed, cloud-native architecture.
- Design and implement scalable data delivery mechanisms for both file-based feeds and modern marketplace distribution platforms.
- Drive DataOps maturity by establishing comprehensive data quality, monitoring, alerting, and CI/CD practices across the platform.
- Influence technical strategy across teams by communicating architectural vision to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Qualifications
- Experience: 9+ years of experience in data engineering, data platforms, or distributed systems.
- Cloud Expertise: Proven track record building and optimizing large-scale data pipelines on a major cloud platform (AWS preferred; Azure or GCP also accepted).
- Data Processing at Scale: Strong experience with distributed or high-performance compute engines for large-scale data transformation. Familiarity with frameworks such as Spark/PySpark, DuckDB, or similar modern engines, and the ability to evaluate trade-offs between them for different workloads.
- SQL & Programming: Expert proficiency in SQL (Postgres, SQL Server, etc) and strong development skills in Python (Python 3.x).
- Data Warehousing: Strong hands-on experience with modern cloud data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift).
- Technical Leadership: Demonstrated ability to influence engineering direction without direct management authority, mentor engineers, and drive alignment across teams.
- Deployment: Experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
- Cloud Storage: Hands-on experience with cloud object storage (AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, or Google Cloud Storage).
Nice to Have (Experience & Tools)
- Architecture: Knowledge of data lake and lakehouse architecture, including the implementation and use of open table formats like Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg.
- Domain Knowledge: Previous experience in highly regulated or financial services industries with stringent data quality and delivery SLA requirements.
- AI-Assisted Development: Experience using agentic coding tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor) to accelerate development workflows.
Incentive Target Percentage
20% AnnualMorningstar's hybrid work environment gives you the opportunity to collaborate in-person each week as we've found that we're at our best when we're purposely together on a regular basis. In most of our locations, our hybrid work model is four days in-office each week. A range of other benefits are also available to enhance flexibility as needs change. No matter where you are, you'll have tools and resources to engage meaningfully with your global colleagues.
100_MstarResCanad Morningstar Research, Inc. (Canada) Legal EntitySkills Required
- 9+ years of experience in data engineering, data platforms, or distributed systems.
- Proven experience building and optimizing large-scale data pipelines on a major cloud platform (AWS preferred; Azure or GCP accepted).
- Experience with distributed or high-performance compute engines for large-scale data transformation (e.g., Spark/PySpark, DuckDB).
- Expert proficiency in SQL (Postgres, SQL Server, etc.).
- Strong development skills in Python (Python 3.x).
- Hands-on experience with modern cloud data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift).
- Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
- Hands-on experience with cloud object storage (AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, or Google Cloud Storage).
- Demonstrated technical leadership: influence engineering direction, mentor engineers, drive cross-team alignment.
What the Team is Saying
Morningstar Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — A recurring paid sabbatical and flexible time off in North America provide substantial time away and are presented as a signature differentiator. The program’s active use alongside paid volunteer days underscores broad time-off options.
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Parental & Family Support — A global standard for paid parental leave plus paid caregiving leave and adoption assistance signals robust family support. These policies are positioned as company-wide standards with location-specific administration.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — A shared ownership program enables converting part of a bonus into RSUs with a company match, adding long‑term value beyond salary. Performance-based RSU awards can further enhance equity outcomes for high achievers.
Morningstar Insights
What We Do
At Morningstar, we believe in building great products in-house in a highly collaborative, agile environment where we focus on technical excellence, the user experience, and continuous improvement. Our technologists represent a range of skills and experience levels, but they all view their work as a craft and push technology’s boundaries.
Why Work With Us
Imagining big things is in our blood -- it's transformed us from a company with just a few employees in 1984 to a leading independent investment research company with a worldwide presence today. As of April 2020, we acquired Sustainalytics to drive long-term meaningful outcomes for investors in the ESG space. Join us on this exciting journey!
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Morningstar Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
