Principal Software Engineer - Data

Title: Principal Software Engineer - Data
Location: Vashi, Navi Mumbai
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will work closely with the Architecture team and Data Product Owner to contribute to the platform's database and data strategy, providing technical recommendations across relational and NoSQL data stores. You will lead & guide a diverse team comprising Data Engineers, SQL Engineers, DBAs and, ensuring database solutions are robust, secure, and aligned with business needs. This role offers the opportunity to design, build, and evaluate data products and platform capabilities, work with complex SQL data models, document databases such as RavenDB (including evaluation of Azure Cosmos DB), and drive cloud native solutions on Azure. Your expertise in data product development will involve setting best practices for data governance, data architecture, data modeling, and performance optimization, while fostering innovation and continuous improvement within the data engineering function
Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and provide technical direction across the database and data engineering function, reporting to the Director of Software Engineering.
• Work with the Architecture team to shape and recommend database architecture patterns and standards.
• Partner with the Data Product Owner to translate business and reporting needs into scalable database solutions.
• Develop a strong understanding of existing SQL data models, schemas, and data flows, and guide their evolution.
• Own evaluation and recommendations for relational vs NoSQL usage, including RavenDB and Azure Cosmos DB. Work closely with DBAs and SQL Engineers to design, review, and optimize SQL schemas, queries, indexing, and performance.
• Design and build scalable data pipelines integrating relational, NoSQL, and cloud native data stores, supporting ingestion, transformation, and reconciliation through Python based frameworks to deliver high-quality, reliable, and performant data solutions.
• Ensure data platforms and cloud storage layers are designed and governed to support scalable analytics and Power BI reporting, including optimized data modeling, partitioned storage layouts, and performant semantic views.
• Support estimation and the end-to-end lifecycle from design through build, test, and production support.
• Promote DevOps / DataOps practices, including CI/CD, monitoring, backups, and operational readiness.
• Analyze and resolve production database issues with appropriate monitoring, alerting, and documentation.
• Own and prioritize the database technical backlog, addressing technical debt and improvements.
• Ensure relevant design, architecture, and runbook documentation is created and maintained.
• Mentor and guide DBAs, SQL Engineers, and Data Engineers, fostering a culture of quality and technical excellence.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and business stakeholders to deliver reliable and scalable database solutions

Requirements:
Must Have:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field, with 9+ years of experience in database engineering, data platforms, or related roles.
• Strong hands-on experience with SQL, including understanding, designing, and optimizing complex existing data models and schemas.
• Experience designing and operating database platforms on cloud infrastructure (Azure preferred; AWS acceptable). Suggestion: Expertise in designing analytics platforms with optimized data models, indexing and partitioning strategies, semantic layers, and query performance tuning to support large scale SQL, ETL and reporting workloads.
• Solid understanding of database performance tuning, indexing strategies, partitioning, and capacity planning.
• Practical understanding of relational vs NoSQL trade-offs and real-world usage patterns.
• Experience collaborating with Architecture teams and Product Owners on technical recommendations.
• Experience with NoSQL / document databases such as RavenDB, Azure Cosmos DB, or MongoDB.
• Exposure to Python or data processing pipelines in support of database-centric solutions. Suggestion: Hands on experience in building cloud-native data platforms using Azure (AWS experience acceptable) data services, scalable storage systems, Python-based processing frameworks, and workflow orchestration tools.
• Suggestion: Proven experience implementing data governance, data lifecycle management, metadata management, lineage, and quality frameworks, integrating them into data platforms to ensure compliance, reliability, and operational resilience.
• Strong experience working in Agile environments using tools such as JIRA

Good to Have:

• Experience in supporting analytics and reporting using Power BI.

• Experience in regulated or financial services environments.

• Azure or AWS certifications (Database / Solutions Architect).

Morningstar is an equal opportunity employer.
Morningstar'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.
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