Come work as a Principal Data Engineer with Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH)!

As a senior technical leader, you will architect, build, and operationalize modern data products on Azure + Databricks, lead major migrations, and raise engineering velocity and quality through AI-assisted development. You’ll mentor engineers, establish patterns/standards, and ensure solutions are secure, governed, and supportable in an enterprise healthcare environment.

As a Principal Data Engineer with Vancouver Coastal Health you will:

• Lead AI-assisted development adoption for data engineering: define when/how to use approved coding assistants to accelerate delivery while maintaining code quality and auditability.
• Establish an AI engineering playbook: prompt patterns, review checklists, “definition of done,” and guardrails (e.g., no sensitive data in prompts; ensure generated code is tested, reviewed, and observable).
• Enable “agentic” workflows where appropriate (e.g., repo-aware assistants, MCP-connected tooling) to improve developer productivity and reduce time-to-debug.
• Own reference architectures for: medallion/lakehouse patterns, batch + streaming ingestion, CI/CD deployment patterns, Unity Catalog governance, and operational monitoring.
• Run a structured mentorship program: pairing, design reviews, code reviews, and “AI code review” norms (validate correctness, performance, security, privacy, maintainability).

This work is framed within VCH’s commitments to our pillars of Indigenous Cultural Safety, Anti-Racism, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and Planetary Health.

Education & Experience

• Master’s degree in computer science, Information Systems Management or a data intensive related field.
• Five (5) years of experience as a data engineer with a minimum of 3 working in a cloud environment.
• Demonstrated project leadership experience.

Knowledge & Abilities

• Proven ability to design, develop and deploy data solutions in a cloud environment ideally in Azure and with Databricks.
• Hands-on experience using AI assistants to accelerate development while keeping code and data quality high
• Ability to perform analysis of the current practices and design and implement best practices within data engineering including CICD pipelines.
• Experience setting up editor/tooling workflows that integrate assistants with Databricks (e.g., MCP-style connections) to reduce copy/paste and speed up debugging.
• Expert-level understanding of software development, deployment and release processes, especially within a DevOps practice and DevOps toolset.
• Experience evaluating/rolling out AI tools in a governed environment (policy, privacy, enablement, adoption).
• Demonstrated hands on experience building sophisticated and highly automated infrastructure.
• Deep understanding of coding best practices and modern architectural patterns using SQL and Python.
• Strong skills in Azure/Databricks environment and scripting languages.
• Demonstrated strength in data modeling, ETL development, and data warehousing architecture with solid knowledge of various industry standards.
• Strong analytical, prioritizing, interpersonal, problem-solving, presentation, budgeting, project management (from conception to completion), & planning skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills including strengths in working in a team environment with a client/user orientation.
• Ability to work effectively with multi-disciplinary teams with different lines of reporting.
• Demonstrated technical leader with skills in teaching, coaching and mentoring others.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills with the ability to effectively communicate complex ideas and processes in simple terminology to internal and external stakeholders, including all levels of management.
• Demonstrated attention to detail and maintenance of high-quality standards.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, meeting deadlines with minimal supervision.
• Develops and maintains strong relationships with key internal and external partners to promote and enhance services provided with sensitivity to diversity and indigenous lens.
• Practices the recognition, inclusion and support of all types and aspects of diversity at all stages of engagement, with an understanding of the issues faced by people from equity-deserving groups.
• Physical ability to perform the duties of the position.

As per Ministry of Health policy, all health care workers working in publicly-funded health care facilities are required to report their past receipt of certain vaccines or history of certain infections. Collecting these records will allow for offering of any missing vaccines, and for appropriate actions to be taken in the event of any future exposure to a communicable disease or during outbreaks. For all new hires and appointments to Vancouver Coastal Health, you will be asked to provide this information as part of the onboarding process.

Why Join Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH):

VCH is a world class innovator in medical care, research and teaching, delivering service to more than one million BC residents. At VCH, we embrace thinking boldly, taking smart risks, and 'going first' when we believe it will lead to the best possible outcomes for patients and their families. We invite you to join us in creating healthy lives in healthy communities by showcasing our passion for care, connection to the communities we serve and our culture of teamwork that makes VCH a great place to work.

• Comprehensive health benefits package, including MSP, extended health and dental and municipal pension plan
• Grow your career with employer-paid training and leadership development opportunities
• Wellness supports, including counselling, critical incident and innovative wellness services are available to employees and their immediate families
• Award-winning recognition programs to honour staff, medical staff and volunteers
• Access to exclusive discount offers and deals for VCH staff

At Vancouver Coastal Health, our vision of healthy lives in healthy communities inspires us and our values and pillars guide us. We support equitable practices, diverse teams and inclusive environments, which are vital to creating welcoming spaces where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and feel supported. We encourage applications from equity-deserving communities, including Indigenous Peoples and members of racialized groups, people with disabilities and people of all gender identities and expressions and sexual orientation.

Vancouver Coastal Health is proud to be recognized as one of BC’s Top Employers, Canada’s Best Diversity Employers and Canada's Top Employers for Young People in 2025.

Only short-listed applicants will be contacted for this posting.


***Employees of VCH must apply online via the Internal Career Portal on CareerHub, you are currently viewing the External Career Portal. Refer to the https://my.vch.ca/working-here/job-postings site for instructions on how to view internal job postings and how to apply as an employee. Current VCH employees who apply to this posting using this external site will be considered as an external candidate. Seniority will not apply.***

Thank you for your interest in Vancouver Coastal Health.