Principal Engineer, Data Platform; Tapestry

Principal Engineer, Data Platform (Tapestry)

Software Engineering Mountain View, CA (HQ)

Tapestry is Alphabet’s moonshot for the electric grid, working at the frontier where energy’s complexity meets AI’s potential. We were born at X, the innovation lab responsible for breakthrough technologies like Waymo, Verily and Google Brain.

To keep pace with humanity’s growing energy needs, the world needs a grid that is visible and understandable. We provide that clarity by building advanced, AI-enabled analytical and planning tools that allow the entire energy ecosystem to plan smarter, move faster, and operate more efficiently—ensuring electricity remains reliable and affordable for everyone.

This is a global effort. Tapestry is proud to support partners in the U.S., U.K., Chile, New Zealand, Australia and Brazil as they build a cleaner, more resilient energy future.

Joining Tapestry allows you to do the best work of your life as part of a multidisciplinary team of experts in AI, energy systems, software engineering and product design—all collaborating to reshape energy on a global scale. If you want to tackle problems that matter and build tools with real impact, we would love to meet you. Learn more about our team and our mission here.

We are looking for a Principal Data Platform Engineer to serve as the chief architect of Tapestry’s unified data intelligence layer. You will own the technical strategy for how we ingest, orchestrate, and serve massive‑scale grid data, ensuring it is ready for the world’s most advanced AI energy models. This role exists to bridge the gap between raw planetary‑scale data and actionable grid intelligence, creating the foundational “Data Cloud” that enables a cleaner, more resilient electric grid.

• Architect the North Star: Define the multi‑year architectural blueprint for an extensible data platform that unifies grid operations, market signals, and physical asset data.
• Engineer for Planet‑Scale: Design and oversee the implementation of high‑throughput ingestion and transformation services that maintain sub‑second latency for critical grid optimizations.
• Define Engineering Excellence: Set the gold standard for “Data‑as‑Code,” implementing rigorous SDLC practices, automated data quality gates, and self‑healing pipeline architectures.
• Bridge AI & Infrastructure: Partner with AI and Power Systems researchers to build specialized storage and retrieval patterns that accelerate ML model training and inference.
• Lead through Influence: Navigate organizational complexity to align cross‑functional leads on data governance, security, and a shared schema strategy that eliminates silos.
• Scale the Organization: Act as a force multiplier by mentoring Staff and Senior engineers, conducting high‑impact design reviews, and recruiting world‑class talent to the team.
• Drive Strategic
  
  Roadmap:
  
  Identify emerging technologies (e.g., Iceberg, Arrow, GPU‑accelerated SQL) that can leapfrog current limitations and provide Tapestry a 10x competitive advantage.

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science or related field or equivalent experience.
• Deep Systems Mastery: 12+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years leading the architecture of large‑scale distributed data systems (Data Lakes, Meshes, or Warehouses).
• Polyglot Technical Depth: Expert‑level proficiency in backend languages (Go, Java, or C++) and a deep‑rooted understanding of high‑performance SQL.
• First‑Principles Infrastructure: Deep knowledge of storage formats, metadata management, and the trade‑offs between various database paradigms (OLAP vs. OLTP, Vector, Graph).
• Operational Rigor: Experience managing “data at rest” and “data in motion” at the petabyte scale, with a focus on security, cost‑optimization and reliability.
• Clear Strategic Communication: Ability to distill complex technical debt or architectural trade‑offs into structured reasoning for executive leadership.
• Craftsmanship Mentality: A “data‑as‑code” mindset and “hold the line” attitude toward code quality, documentation, and system observability.
• Mission Alignment: A genuine…