Senior Principal Data Engineer Jobs in USA with Visa Sponsorship
Senior Principal Data Engineers consistently rank among the most sponsored roles in the U.S. Employers filing H-1B visa and O-1 visa petitions for this title cite computer science, information systems, and engineering degrees as the standard qualification. Most roles require at least a master's degree and significant architectural experience. For detailed occupation requirements, see the O*NET profile.
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Get Access To All JobsINTRODUCTION
At Klaviyo, we value the unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives each Klaviyo (we call ourselves Klaviyos) brings to our workplace each and every day. We believe everyone deserves a fair shot at success and appreciate the experiences each person brings beyond the traditional job requirements. If you're a close but not exact match with the description, we hope you'll still consider applying. Want to learn more about life at Klaviyo? Visit klaviyo.com/careers to see how we empower creators to own their own destiny.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Own the technical direction and delivery for Klaviyo's data platform - streaming, batch compute, storage/lakehouse, and governance - now the foundation for autonomous, agent-driven experiences. Klaviyo's data platform processes billions of events daily across billions of consumer profiles for hundreds of thousands of brands, and increasingly that data is consumed not just by people but by a growing number of AI agents acting on customers' behalf. The footprint grows on two axes at once, ever-larger data volumes and a steady stream of new data scenarios (new sources, domains, and consumption patterns) and your systems have to scale on both.
You'll design and ship systems that are fast, reliable, cost-efficient, and safe for autonomous access, creating paved roads for data producers and consumers, human and agent alike. This is an individual-contributor role (no direct reports); you lead through architecture, code, and influence. Expectations align to Lead/Principal IC behaviors: establishing SLOs, driving technical evolution, and acting as the interface across teams.
- Design and implement core data platform capabilities (e.g., event ingestion/CDC, stream processing, batch orchestration, data lake/warehouse patterns, catalog/lineage, governance, access, and compliance).
- Define and uphold SLOs for data freshness, availability, and correctness; author/run readiness reviews, incident response, and post-incident learning for your domain.
- Author ADRs/RFCs, land data contracts and schema governance, and standardize connectors and templates that accelerate developer velocity.
- Profile, tune, and right-size systems for performance and cost; partner with FinOps on unit-economics guardrails.
- Pair with product teams and analytics/ML to expose the right abstractions and unblock customer value quickly.
- Contribute high-quality code and reviews; mentor Staff/ Sr. engineers across pillars through example and enablement (not line management).
- Use AI to streamline data workflows, from authoring and testing pipelines to catalog/search and DQ, so analysts, ML, and product teams move faster with confidence.
Who You Are
- Experience: 10+ years building and operating distributed data systems (e.g., Kafka/PubSub, Flink/Spark/Beam, Airflow/Dagster, Iceberg/Delta/Hudi; Snowflake/BigQuery; object storage) with multi-tenant reliability.
- Technical expertise: Data ingestion/CDC, stream processing, batch orchestration, lakehouse patterns, catalog/lineage, governance, and access controls, measured by freshness, availability, and correctness SLOs.
- AI tools & automation: You apply ML/GenAI to data platforms - semantic catalog search, auto-docs, data-quality anomaly detection, SQL/pipeline generation - with human-in-the-loop review and privacy controls.
- Influence & enablement: You land data contracts, connectors, and templates that speed delivery for producers and consumers; you mentor via design docs and pairing.
- AI fluency (Klaviyo default): You experiment, learn fast, and share AI wins responsibly.
Nice to Haves
- Regional isolation/replication strategies, privacy-by-design, and data governance in regulated contexts.
- Adopted paved roads: Producers/consumers are on standard ingestion, processing, and storage paths; schema governance and contracts reduce breakage.
- SLOs & efficiency: 99.9% freshness for key domains; measurable cost/TB reductions; production debugging is faster with defined readiness reviews and incident learning.
- AI-augmented data operations: Semantic discovery and auto-documentation cover the majority of high-value datasets; AI-assisted DQ monitors reduce data incidents on top pipelines by 25–40%; pipeline authoring and review times drop 15–25% with AI in the loop.
Success in 6 - 12 Months
- Adopted "paved roads" for producers/consumers; 99.9% freshness SLO for key domains; measurable cost/TB reductions.
- One or more step-change improvements (e.g., 2× faster ingest analytics latency) demonstrated with metrics and post-incident trend-down.
This role may require up to 10% travel for purposes such as new hire onboarding, client or partner work if applicable, team meetings, and industry events. Travel is coordinated in advance.
Get to Know Klaviyo
We're Klaviyo (pronounced clay-vee-oh). We empower creators to own their destiny by making first-party data accessible and actionable like never before. We see limitless potential for the technology we're developing to nurture personalized experiences in ecommerce and beyond. To reach our goals, we need our own crew of remarkable creators—ambitious and collaborative teammates who stay focused on our north star: delighting our customers. If you're ready to do the best work of your career, where you'll be welcomed as your whole self from day one and supported with generous benefits, we hope you'll join us.
AI fluency at Klaviyo includes responsible use of AI (including privacy, security, bias awareness, and human-in-the-loop). We provide accommodations as needed.
By participating in Klaviyo's interview process, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and will adhere to our Guidelines for using AI in the Klaviyo interview Process. For more information about how we process your personal data, see our Job Applicant Privacy Notice.
Klaviyo is committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non-discrimination. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, citizenship, national origin, color, religion or religious creed, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, veteran or active military status, marital status, criminal record, genetics, retaliation, sexual harassment or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Our company takes the security and privacy of job applicants very seriously. We will never ask for payment, bank details, or personal financial information as part of the application process. All our legitimate job postings can be found on our official career site. Please be cautious of job offers that come from non-company email addresses (@klaviyo.com), instant messaging platforms, or unsolicited calls.
By clicking "Submit Application" you consent to Klaviyo processing your Personal Data in accordance with our Job Applicant Privacy Notice. If you do not wish for Klaviyo to process your Personal Data, please do not submit an application. You can find our Job Applicant Privacy Notice here and here (FR).
INTRODUCTION
At Klaviyo, we value the unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives each Klaviyo (we call ourselves Klaviyos) brings to our workplace each and every day. We believe everyone deserves a fair shot at success and appreciate the experiences each person brings beyond the traditional job requirements. If you're a close but not exact match with the description, we hope you'll still consider applying. Want to learn more about life at Klaviyo? Visit klaviyo.com/careers to see how we empower creators to own their own destiny.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Own the technical direction and delivery for Klaviyo's data platform - streaming, batch compute, storage/lakehouse, and governance - now the foundation for autonomous, agent-driven experiences. Klaviyo's data platform processes billions of events daily across billions of consumer profiles for hundreds of thousands of brands, and increasingly that data is consumed not just by people but by a growing number of AI agents acting on customers' behalf. The footprint grows on two axes at once, ever-larger data volumes and a steady stream of new data scenarios (new sources, domains, and consumption patterns) and your systems have to scale on both.
You'll design and ship systems that are fast, reliable, cost-efficient, and safe for autonomous access, creating paved roads for data producers and consumers, human and agent alike. This is an individual-contributor role (no direct reports); you lead through architecture, code, and influence. Expectations align to Lead/Principal IC behaviors: establishing SLOs, driving technical evolution, and acting as the interface across teams.
- Design and implement core data platform capabilities (e.g., event ingestion/CDC, stream processing, batch orchestration, data lake/warehouse patterns, catalog/lineage, governance, access, and compliance).
- Define and uphold SLOs for data freshness, availability, and correctness; author/run readiness reviews, incident response, and post-incident learning for your domain.
- Author ADRs/RFCs, land data contracts and schema governance, and standardize connectors and templates that accelerate developer velocity.
- Profile, tune, and right-size systems for performance and cost; partner with FinOps on unit-economics guardrails.
- Pair with product teams and analytics/ML to expose the right abstractions and unblock customer value quickly.
- Contribute high-quality code and reviews; mentor Staff/ Sr. engineers across pillars through example and enablement (not line management).
- Use AI to streamline data workflows, from authoring and testing pipelines to catalog/search and DQ, so analysts, ML, and product teams move faster with confidence.
Who You Are
- Experience: 10+ years building and operating distributed data systems (e.g., Kafka/PubSub, Flink/Spark/Beam, Airflow/Dagster, Iceberg/Delta/Hudi; Snowflake/BigQuery; object storage) with multi-tenant reliability.
- Technical expertise: Data ingestion/CDC, stream processing, batch orchestration, lakehouse patterns, catalog/lineage, governance, and access controls, measured by freshness, availability, and correctness SLOs.
- AI tools & automation: You apply ML/GenAI to data platforms - semantic catalog search, auto-docs, data-quality anomaly detection, SQL/pipeline generation - with human-in-the-loop review and privacy controls.
- Influence & enablement: You land data contracts, connectors, and templates that speed delivery for producers and consumers; you mentor via design docs and pairing.
- AI fluency (Klaviyo default): You experiment, learn fast, and share AI wins responsibly.
Nice to Haves
- Regional isolation/replication strategies, privacy-by-design, and data governance in regulated contexts.
- Adopted paved roads: Producers/consumers are on standard ingestion, processing, and storage paths; schema governance and contracts reduce breakage.
- SLOs & efficiency: 99.9% freshness for key domains; measurable cost/TB reductions; production debugging is faster with defined readiness reviews and incident learning.
- AI-augmented data operations: Semantic discovery and auto-documentation cover the majority of high-value datasets; AI-assisted DQ monitors reduce data incidents on top pipelines by 25–40%; pipeline authoring and review times drop 15–25% with AI in the loop.
Success in 6 - 12 Months
- Adopted "paved roads" for producers/consumers; 99.9% freshness SLO for key domains; measurable cost/TB reductions.
- One or more step-change improvements (e.g., 2× faster ingest analytics latency) demonstrated with metrics and post-incident trend-down.
This role may require up to 10% travel for purposes such as new hire onboarding, client or partner work if applicable, team meetings, and industry events. Travel is coordinated in advance.
Get to Know Klaviyo
We're Klaviyo (pronounced clay-vee-oh). We empower creators to own their destiny by making first-party data accessible and actionable like never before. We see limitless potential for the technology we're developing to nurture personalized experiences in ecommerce and beyond. To reach our goals, we need our own crew of remarkable creators—ambitious and collaborative teammates who stay focused on our north star: delighting our customers. If you're ready to do the best work of your career, where you'll be welcomed as your whole self from day one and supported with generous benefits, we hope you'll join us.
AI fluency at Klaviyo includes responsible use of AI (including privacy, security, bias awareness, and human-in-the-loop). We provide accommodations as needed.
By participating in Klaviyo's interview process, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and will adhere to our Guidelines for using AI in the Klaviyo interview Process. For more information about how we process your personal data, see our Job Applicant Privacy Notice.
Klaviyo is committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non-discrimination. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, citizenship, national origin, color, religion or religious creed, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, veteran or active military status, marital status, criminal record, genetics, retaliation, sexual harassment or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Our company takes the security and privacy of job applicants very seriously. We will never ask for payment, bank details, or personal financial information as part of the application process. All our legitimate job postings can be found on our official career site. Please be cautious of job offers that come from non-company email addresses (@klaviyo.com), instant messaging platforms, or unsolicited calls.
By clicking "Submit Application" you consent to Klaviyo processing your Personal Data in accordance with our Job Applicant Privacy Notice. If you do not wish for Klaviyo to process your Personal Data, please do not submit an application. You can find our Job Applicant Privacy Notice here and here (FR).
See all 20,372+ Senior Principal Data Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Senior Principal Data Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Visa Sponsorship as a Senior Principal Data Engineer
Target companies with established H-1B filing histories
Large tech, finance, and healthcare companies file H-1B petitions for data engineering roles at senior principal level regularly. Filtering for employers with repeat sponsorship records significantly improves your odds of a smooth, well-resourced process.
Lead with architectural scope, not just technical skills
USCIS expects specialty occupation evidence for senior principal roles. Emphasize system design leadership, cross-functional ownership, and enterprise-scale impact in your resume to strengthen the employer's H-1B petition supporting documentation.
Clarify your degree field early in conversations
H-1B specialty occupation requires a degree in a directly related field. Computer science, data engineering, and applied mathematics typically qualify. Flag any non-standard degree early so the employer's immigration counsel can assess the case before an offer is extended.
Understand how cap-exempt employers change your timeline
Universities, research nonprofits, and certain government-affiliated entities are H-1B cap-exempt. Senior principal roles at these organizations can be filed any time of year without lottery exposure, which matters if you missed the annual registration window.
Consider O-1A if you have a strong public profile
Senior principal engineers with published research, conference presentations, or documented industry recognition may qualify for the O-1A extraordinary ability visa. It bypasses the lottery entirely and can be filed while simultaneously pursuing H-1B options.
Get the LCA certified before negotiating a start date
Your employer must file a Labor Condition Application with the Department of Labor before submitting the H-1B petition. LCA certification typically takes seven business days. Factor this into your expected start date to avoid committing to an unrealistic timeline.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Senior Principal Data Engineer a qualifying specialty occupation for the H-1B visa?
Yes, Senior Principal Data Engineer consistently qualifies as a specialty occupation under H-1B visa standards. USCIS looks for a direct relationship between the role's duties and a specific degree field. Roles involving distributed system architecture, data pipeline design, and technical leadership across engineering teams typically meet the requirement when paired with a degree in computer science, information systems, or a closely related discipline.
Does my degree field affect H-1B approval odds for this role?
It matters more than most candidates expect. USCIS requires that the bachelor's degree or higher be in a specific specialty directly related to the job. Computer science, data engineering, electrical engineering, and applied mathematics are the strongest fits. Degrees in unrelated fields, even combined with years of experience, can lead to a Request for Evidence or denial unless the employer builds a detailed supporting argument.
How competitive is H-1B sponsorship for Senior Principal Data Engineers compared to other roles?
Senior principal roles attract sponsorship from employers who are already comfortable with the H-1B process, which reduces the friction compared to smaller or less experienced sponsors. The H-1B lottery remains the main bottleneck: USCIS received over 470,000 registrations for FY2026 against an 85,000-slot cap. Seniority helps because employers are more willing to invest in premium processing and legal fees for senior hires.
Can I find Senior Principal Data Engineer roles with visa sponsorship on Migrate Mate?
Yes. Migrate Mate's job board filters specifically for roles open to visa sponsorship, including H-1B, O-1, and green card pathways. Senior principal data engineering positions from employers with verified sponsorship histories appear regularly. Searching by role and filtering by visa type is the fastest way to identify employers actively filing for this job title.
What happens to my H-1B status if I'm laid off while working as a Senior Principal Data Engineer?
You have a 60-day grace period from your last day of employment to find a new sponsoring employer, change to another valid visa status, or depart the U.S. Your new employer must file a new H-1B petition, though cap-exempt portability rules may apply if your original petition was already approved. Acting quickly is critical since the 60-day window does not reset between consecutive layoffs.
What is the prevailing wage requirement for sponsored Senior Principal Data Engineer jobs?
U.S. employers sponsoring a visa must pay at least the prevailing wage, which is what workers in the same role, area, and experience level typically earn. The Department of Labor sets this rate to make sure companies aren't hiring foreign workers simply because they'd accept lower pay than a U.S. worker. It varies by job title, location, and experience. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search page.