Principal Data Engineer

Largeton Group is seeking a Principal Data Engineer to lead the technical design and implementation of data systems for personalization, social systems, and matchmaking across publishing platforms. The role involves building scalable data pipelines, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and mentoring data engineers while ensuring compliance with privacy and security guidelines.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the technical design and implementation of data systems for personalization, social systems, and matchmaking across publishing platforms
• Build and maintain scalable, real-time, low-latency data pipelines and systems supporting player chat, presence, friend graphs, and skill-based matchmaking
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineering, analytics, data science, research, and product teams to create seamless, data-driven in-game and around-game player experiences
• Mentor and guide data engineers; set best practices and drive technical growth within the discipline
• Ensure compliance with privacy, security, and responsible AI guidelines when handling user data
• Design and implement distributed, real-time data systems for social features (voice/text chat, presence, friends, matchmaking)
• Build and optimize data pipelines to collect and serve player state, behavioral, and telemetry data for matchmaking logic
• Implement event-driven and streaming architectures for low-latency feedback between gameplay and data systems
• Develop and integrate data-driven matchmaking algorithms (Elo, Glicko, MMR, skill- and engagement-based)
• Mentor and set technical standards for data engineers; contribute to hiring and talent development
• Communicate technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Lead adoption of scalable data architecture standards and governance practices
• Evaluate and adopt new tools, frameworks, and methodologies to advance data engineering capabilities

Requirements:

• Bachelor s or Master s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field
• 8+ years experience in data engineering or backend systems, including 2+ years focused on real-time, low-latency architectures
• Proven experience building personalization or matchmaking systems and player-facing social features (with strong Elo/MMR/matchmaking algorithm knowledge)
• Deep expertise with data storage and messaging technologies (Redis, DynamoDB, Cassandra, or similar)
• Ability to design scalable data models and bridge the gap between data science models and production engineering
• Demonstrated cross-functional collaboration and mentorship abilities
• Elo/MMR/matchmaking algorithm expertise
• Experience with Redis, Cassandra, DynamoDB
• Real-time, low-latency system design
• Built ranked matchmaking systems in multiplayer gaming environments
• Experience with real-time chat/voice data systems and moderation pipelines
• Experience building and optimizing feature stores and online/offline data pipelines
• Familiarity with vector databases or semantic search systems
• Background in gaming, esports, or large-scale interactive media
• Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in a related technical field