Principal Data Engineer

About this role

ABOUT SLATE

At Slate, we’re building safe, reliable vehicles that people can afford, personalize and love—and doing it here in the USA as part of our commitment to reindustrialization. The spirit of DIY and customization runs throughout every element of a Slate, because people should have control over how their trucks look, feel, and represent them.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Slate is looking for a Principal Data Engineer to help build and scale our data ecosystem. This role is critical to shaping how we collect, organize, and leverage data across the enterprise. You will influence the data roadmap and establish the standards, practices, and technologies that power data-driven decision making at Slate. You must be able to thrive and succeed in a fast-paced startup environment where your contributions have a direct impact on the company’s direction and success, and should not be hindered by ambiguity or competing priorities.

WHAT YOU GET TO DO

• Influence and oversee the enterprise data roadmap, scaling our data ecosystem as our data universe grows.

• Define and enforce ETL/ELT standards for data ingestion, transformation, and loading across the organization.

• Architect and manage cloud data infrastructure on AWS, including Redshift, DynamoDB, and scalable pipeline patterns.

• Establish data cataloging, source system mapping, and data dictionary practices to organize our data universe.

• Automate and streamline onboarding of third-party data sources as external service integrations expand.

• Partner with analytics teams to support reporting and visualization needs using variety of tools including Tableau.

• Collaborate with business partners on requirements gathering and advocate for effective data solutions.

• Drive responsible adoption of AI and ML technologies, including LLMs (e.g., Claude, OpenAI), ensuring ethical use and data integrity.

• Define and standardize the company’s ML tooling to enable high-value insights at scale.

• Lead data g...