Who We Are At Torrens University Australia, making a difference is in our DNA. As a Certified B Corporation, we belong to a global community of future-focused companies using business as a force for good. We believe in the transformative power of education to change lives, families, communities – and the world. As Australia’s fastest-growing university, we are building modern, scalable digital capabilities that support student success, operational excellence and responsible AI adoption. Our Data Platform is central to this ambition — and we’re now looking for a Principal Data Engineer to help shape its future. What’s the Job? This is a senior technical leadership role with deep hands-on engineering accountability. Reporting to the Head of Data Platform & Governance, you will be the technical authority responsible for designing, building and uplifting Torrens’ cloud-native data platform on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The role will begin with a technical assessment of the current data platform to identify resilience gaps, engineering standards, pipeline reliability improvements and opportunities to introduce scalable platform patterns. You’ll step into an environment where foundational standards, DataOps maturity, observability and governance uplift are key priorities. This role will: Conduct a technical audit of current pipelines, standards and platform resilience Define and implement data engineering design standards, reusable patterns and reference architectures Build and optimise modern batch and streaming pipelines Establish platform-level CI/CD, IaC and observability frameworks Lead technical design reviews for internal and vendor-built pipelines Ensure solutions align with enterprise architecture and platform standards Define platform SLAs and support model with Operations teams Implement monitoring, alerting and incident response frameworks Uplift engineering capability while remaining hands-on T his is not a pure architecture role. We are looking for an engineer-first leader — someone who can design at scale, review code, build pipelines and drive technical quality. Key Points About This Role Cloud-Native Platform Ownership Lead architecture and engineering of scalable GCP data pipelines across batch and streaming environments. DataOps & Automation Uplift Implement CI/CD, IaC (Terraform), testing and observability to reduce incidents and increase resilience. Governance-by-Design Engineering Embed metadata, lineage, data quality and privacy controls directly into ingestion and pipeline frameworks. Technical Authority & Vendor Oversight Provide engineering standards, review vendor outputs and guide cross-functional delivery quality. Hands-On Leadership Mentor engineers, lead technical reviews and build high-quality, reusable data assets. Who You Are GCP Engineering Expert 8 years in data/cloud engineering with strong hands-on experience across BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Composer /Airflow and Cloud Storage. Advanced Programming Capability Expert in Python and SQL with experience building scalable, distributed data pipelines. Data Platform Observability Experience implementing monitoring and observability frameworks for data pipelines, including logging, metrics, alerting and pipeline health tracking. DataOps & Automation Leader Proven delivery of CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), observability and automated testing frameworks. Data Modelling Experience designing analytical data models and optimising schema design for scalable analytical workloads. Architecture-Aligned Engineer Strong understanding of cloud-native data platform design, streaming architectures and cost optimisation (FinOps). Technical Influencer & Mentor Confident communicator who can lead code reviews, challenge vendors, uplift standards and operate independently. This is a Full-Time, Permanent position based at our Surry Hills Campus in Sydney offering Hybrid working. To review the full job description please Click here. Why Join Us? Bold, modern and agile, we’ve grown from 164 students in 2014 to 40,000 alumni across 115 countries. We are building enterprise data capabilities from the ground up — giving you the opportunity to shape standards, define patterns and create a true centre of excellence. This role offers architectural influence, hands-on engineering depth and the autonomy to build something meaningful. What We Offer At Torrens University Australia, you’ll benefit from: Study free in a course/degree related to your position Flexible hybrid working arrangements B Corp certified university – values driven and purpose led Access to internal opportunities to grow and move across the organisation A culture that encourages innovation, accountability and impact Hiring Process We aim to provide you with the information you need at each stage of this process to help you present your best self. If you have any accessibility requirements, please contact your recruiter at Nikeey.silwal@torrens.edu.au for confidential support. We are committed to ensuring an equitable, barrier-free application process and have a Reasonable Adjustment Procedure in place to support you throughout the recruitment process. We are a 2026 Circle Back Initiative Employer and commit to respond to every applicant. To learn more about what makes Torrens University Australia a great place to work, visit https://www.torrens.edu.au/blog. We’d love to hear from you. Job reference: R29620 To ensure a fair and thorough review process, applications for this role will close on Friday 27 th March. You can expect to hear from our Talent Acquisition team after this date with any updates about your application. If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete our application process, please contact our Human Resources Department at yourcareer@torrens.edu.au