Job Title: Principal Data Engineer / Engineering Manager
Contract Type: Contract to Hire - initial 12 month contract, then convert to full-time
Job Location: Sanford, Connecticut (preferred) or New York City
Days a Week Onsite/Hybrid/Remote: 4 days onsite / hybrid
Job Pay Rate: $90-$98/hr
Job Salary: $175,000 - $185,000 upon conversion
Interview Process: 3 rounds process
Optomi, in partnership with a leading media technology company, is looking for an Principal Data Engineer / Engineering Manager to spearhead a critical project. You will lead an initiative to consolidate disparate telemetry systems into a unified platform, enhancing automation, root-cause analysis, and self-healing capabilities with AI. This role involves interfacing with various teams, including SSAI, player, and CDM teams, to streamline video operations and KPI analysis. The successful candidate will be a highly technical leader — part architect, part developer, and part engineering manager — who can work across multiple teams and systems to drive innovation in video engineering.
**This is not a traditional people-management-focused Engineering Manager role; the person needs to be highly technical and hands-on, with a strong architecture mindset. Staff/Principal/Distinguished Engineers or Architects who are interested in a player-coach leadership role could be strong fits.
What the right candidate will enjoy:
- Leading a high-impact project at the intersection of media, data, architecture, AI, and technology
- Architecting a solution that brings together telemetry and data from multiple platforms and systems
- Collaborating with multiple teams to solve complex technical challenges
- Building a new team and helping shape its technical direction
- Working on automation, AI, and self-healing capabilities
- Being part of a dynamic and innovative team environment
What type of experience does the right candidate have:
- Proven experience with observability, monitoring, and telemetry tools
- Strong architecture and technical leadership background
- Experience integrating or consolidating disparate platforms, systems, or data sources
- Strong understanding of data architecture, data harmonization, and distributed systems
- Hands-on engineering experience and willingness to remain technically involved
- Experience with automation, AI, or self-healing operational capabilities
- Experience in media or streaming industries is a plus, but NOT required
- Staff, Principal, Distinguished Engineer, Architect, or highly technical Engineering Manager backgrounds could be strong fits
What the responsibilities are of the right candidate:
- Lead the consolidation of telemetry systems across teams
- Architect and help build a unified platform for video operations, monitoring, and KPI analysis
- Determine the appropriate data points and telemetry to pull from underlying component systems
- Structure and harmonize data from multiple sources to support automation and AI
- Implement AI-driven automation and self-healing capabilities for enhanced operational efficiency
- Work closely with SSAI, player, CDM, and other engineering teams to integrate their systems and telemetry
- Drive deeper root-cause analysis beyond surface-level alerts
- Lead and develop a newly formed team, potentially including offshore support
- Participate in hiring and help define the technical capabilities of the new team
- Communicate effectively with technical and business stakeholders to achieve project goals
Principal Data Engineer in New York City Metropolitan Area at Optomi
This position is listed as contract and able to be worked remotely. It was posted 5 days ago.