Principal Data Engineer, People Data

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real‑world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence.

The Technology, Data, and Intelligence (TDI) organization is the engine that powers Okta's global workforce, providing the technology and systems that enable our employees to do their best work.

The Principal Data Engineer Opportunity

Okta's Data Engineering team is on a mission to accelerate Okta's scale and growth by building platforms that are utilized across the organization. With the growth of AI in our Products and our business, Okta's data is more critical to our success than ever.

This role will work closely with our People (HR) teams to ensure that valuable candidate and employee data is captured, unlocking insights that will drive Employee experience and growth goals for the entire employee lifecycle from recruiting through employment. This involves leading projects and collaborating closely with data source owners, analytic engineers, data analysts and business users to ensure data availability and integrity.

As a Principal Data Engineer on the Data and Insights team, you will be a key technical leader responsible for architecting, building, and maintaining our most critical and scalable data solutions. This role involves leading complex projects and collaborating closely with product engineers, analytic engineers, data analysts and data scientists to ensure data availability and integrity of the enterprise. As a Principal member of the team you will have a proven ability to tie engineering initiatives to product and business impact. You will also demonstrate a strong sense of judgement, and the ability to influence across the organization.

What you’ll be doing

• Design, build and evolve high scale data solutions that serve as the reference architecture for the organization and simplify data access across the organization
• Develop data quality frameworks, monitoring, anomaly detection, and alerting, with governance, lineage tracking, and change management rigor appropriate for externally reported numbers
• Drive adoption of consistent data modeling patterns, naming conventions, documentation norms, and metric governance standards across the data organization
• Lead cross‑functional technical initiatives across data verticals to accelerate delivery and harden data systems
• Navigate ambiguity and make sound technical decisions, balancing short‑term delivery with long‑term infrastructure investment
• Champion Data Contracts: implement data contracts and schema evolution practices to ensure reliability across global product teams
• Mentor and Scale: raise the technical bar by mentoring senior engineers, leading cross functional task forces, and fostering a culture of engineering excellence and data driven decision making
• Stay at the forefront of the data landscape, adopting and advocating for emerging technologies and practices to guide the team’s long‑term technical direction

What you’ll bring to the role

• Experience: 10+ years in a data engineering role, with proven experience in a senior or lead capacity. Experience with Federal government compliance and security requirements is highly desirable.
• Technical Expertise: Expert‑level experience with SQL, ETL/ELT tools (Airflow, dbt), and MPP databases (Snowflake, Redshift). Extensive hands‑on experience with AWS services (S3, Lambda, EMR, ECR, EKS).
• People Data expertise: expertise in HR data—specifically in candidate lifecycle, employee records, compensation, and organizational data. Experience designing data models that capture recruiting analytics, engagement signals, and workforce planning metrics.
• Familiarity with Workday data structures is a bonus
• Experience building and maintaining batch and realtime pipelines using technologies like Spark, Kafka
• Deep experience designing and working with modern lakehouse and warehouse architectures (Databricks, Snowflake) and modern file formats (Iceberg, Delta)
• Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)
• Track record of hands‑on collaboration with Data Science, Business, and Product teams

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in the San Francisco Bay area is between $197,000 — $270,600 USD.

Below is the annual base salary range for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York and Washington: $176,000 — $242,000 USD. Your actual base salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, experience, and work location. In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), flexible spending account, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program please visit

Benefits & Experience

• Supporting Your Well‑Being
• Driving Social Impact
• Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community

We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in‑person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one.

Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws.

If reasonable accommodation is needed to complete any part of the job application, interview process, or onboarding please use this Form to request an accommodation.

Notice for New York City Applicants & Employees: Okta may use Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT), as defined by New York City Local Law 144, that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, or other automated processes to assist in our recruitment and hiring process. In accordance with NYC Local Law 144, if you are an applicant or employee residing in New York City, please click here to view our full NYC AEDT Notice.