Job description

At Alcon, we are driven by the meaningful work we do to help people see brilliantly. We innovate boldly, champion progress, and act with speed as the global leader in eye care. Here, you’ll be recognized for your commitment and contributions and see your career like never before. Together, we go above and beyond to make an impact on the lives of our patients and customers. Are you ready to join us? We foster an inclusive culture and are looking for diverse, talented leaders to join Alcon. The Principal Data Engineer is a senior technical leader responsible for designing, building, and evolving scalable, reliable, and secure enterprise data platforms and data products. This role provides hands-on technical leadership across data architecture, data pipelines, cloud platforms, data quality, governance, and engineering practices. The Principal Data Engineer partners closely with Data Science, BI/Analytics, product teams, business stakeholders, and technology teams to ensure trusted, well-engineered data is available for analytics, AI, machine learning, reporting, and operational use cases. The role is intended to be a technical leadership position rather than a people-management position, with significant responsibility for architecture decisions, engineering standards, mentoring, and solving the organization s most complex data engineering challenges. In this role, a typical day will include: Technical Leadership & Architecture Serve as a technical leader for enterprise data engineering solutions. Design scalable data architectures, data pipelines, integration patterns, and reusable data services. Establish engineering standards for data ingestion, transformation, storage, orchestration, testing, monitoring, and deployment. Lead technical design reviews and guide teams toward scalable solutions rather than short-term fixes. Evaluate emerging data technologies and recommend practical adoption where they provide measurable value. Data Pipeline Engineering Design and develop robust batch and streaming data pipelines across enterprise data sources. Build reusable frameworks that improve development speed, consistency, observability, and maintainability. Optimize data pipelines for performance, scalability, reliability, and cost. Establish monitoring and alerting to proactively identify pipeline and data-quality issues. Improve pipeline reliability, freshness, and data-quality outcomes, which are specifically identified as engineering measures in your current organization material. AI & Analytics Enablement Partner with Data Scientists and analytics teams to create reliable, AI-ready data foundations. Develop data pipelines and curated datasets supporting machine learning, forecasting, optimization, Generative AI, and advanced analytics. Support production AI solutions through appropriate data architecture, lineage, quality controls, monitoring, and reusable data services. Work closely with ML/AI engineering teams to enable scalable model development and deployment. What you will bring to Alcon: Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent years of directly related experience (or high school 13 yrs; Assoc. 9 yrs; M.S. 2 yrs; PhD 0 yrs) The ability to fluently read, write, understand, and communicate in English 5 Years of Relevant Experience Preferred Qualifications: Power BI Business intelligence How You Can Thrive at Alcon: Lead alongside high‑performing teams in a culture that values collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement. Grow your career through leadership development and meaningful enterprise impact. Join Alcon’s mission to provide outstanding, innovative products and solutions to improve sight, improve lives, and grow your career! Alcon provides robust benefits package including health, life, retirement, flexible time off, and much more! See your impact at: alcon.com/careers ATTENTION: Current Alcon Employee/Contingent Worker If you are currently an active employee/contingent worker at Alcon, please click the appropriate link below to apply on the Internal Career site. Find Jobs for Employees Find Jobs for Contingent Worker ALCON IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER AND PARTICIPATES IN E-VERIFY Alcon takes pride in maintaining an inclusive environment that values different perspectives and our policies are non-discriminatory in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status. Alcon is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, or in order to perform the essential functions of a position, please send an email to alcon.recruitment alcon.com and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.

Requirements

Must-haves

In this role, a typical day will include:
Technical Leadership & Architecture
Serve as a technical leader for enterprise data engineering solutions.
Design scalable data architectures, data pipelines, integration patterns, and reusable data services.
Establish engineering standards for data ingestion, transformation, storage, orchestration, testing, monitoring, and deployment.
Lead technical design reviews and guide teams toward scalable solutions rather than short-term fixes.
Evaluate emerging data technologies and recommend practical adoption where they provide measurable value.
Data Pipeline Engineering
Design and develop robust batch and streaming data pipelines across enterprise data sources.
Build reusable frameworks that improve development speed, consistency, observability, and maintainability.
Optimize data pipelines for performance, scalability, reliability, and cost.
Establish monitoring and alerting to proactively identify pipeline and data-quality issues.
Improve pipeline reliability, freshness, and data-quality outcomes, which are specifically identified as engineering measures in your current organization material.
AI & Analytics Enablement
Partner with Data Scientists and analytics teams to create reliable, AI-ready data foundations.
Develop data pipelines and curated datasets supporting machine learning, forecasting, optimization, Generative AI, and advanced analytics.
Support production AI solutions through appropriate data architecture, lineage, quality controls, monitoring, and reusable data services.
Work closely with ML/AI engineering teams to enable scalable model development and deployment.
Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent years of directly related experience (or high school 13 yrs; Assoc. 9 yrs; M.S. 2 yrs; PhD 0 yrs)
The ability to fluently read, write, understand, and communicate in English
5 Years of Relevant Experience
Lead alongside high‑performing teams in a culture that values collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Grow your career through leadership development and meaningful enterprise impact.

Nice-to-haves

Business intelligence

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

goaimachine learningml

Platform: workday
Effort: long