Principal Data & AI Engineer- Media
A senior technical leadership role (no direct reports) in Cartology, Woolworths Group's retail media business in Sydney. The engineer sets architecture and standards for audience activation and media measurement data platforms, helping found a Data & AI Centre of Excellence, using SQL, Python, dbt, Airflow, and cloud warehouses like BigQuery/Snowflake.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Principal
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 8+ years
- Category
- Ai engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 8+ years in data engineering
- Proven experience designing large-scale data platforms in BigQuery, Snowflake, or Redshift
- Mastery of SQL, Python, dbt, and Airflow
- Deep experience with ad logs, audience segmentation, platform reporting, and campaign measurement within retail media, publishers, or agencies
- Technical leadership: guiding senior engineers, conducting design reviews, raising engineering standards without direct reports
- Hands-on experience driving AI-assisted engineering practices, governance guardrails, and AI-ready data infrastructure
- Commercial acumen and ability to translate complex technical designs into business outcomes for stakeholders
Nice to have
- Familiarity with data clean rooms, warehouse-native activation tools (Hightouch, Census, RudderStack), or platforms like Meta, LiveRamp, and DV360
- Exposure to semantic layers (LookML, Cube, dbt metrics), closed-loop measurement, incrementality, or building a Centre of Excellence from scratch
Full description
Principal Data & AI Engineer- Audience & Measurement
- senior technical leadership role
- Surry Hills location with hybrid working (3 days in the office)
- Help establish the Centre of Excellence for audience capability and media measurement.
About Cartology, Audience Capabilities, and the Data & AI COECartology is the Retail Media Business within Woolworths Group, connecting brands with customers through data-led experiences. Retail media runs on data: audiences planned before a campaign, measured during it, and proven after it, across our own channels and the open web.
We are investing in new audience capabilities: how audiences are created, governed, and activated across channels. Woolworths Group data platforms underpin the work, and the engineering bar is high: audiences that reach their channels in hours, with commercial guardrails engineered into the platform rather than bolted on as manual review.
Alongside the audience work, we are evolving measurement: post-campaign measurement and reporting with and without audience overlay, for on-network and off-network advertising, drawing on platform reporting, ad logs, and data clean rooms.
You join at the start. Initially you are part of the audience capability project team; as the capability matures you embed in the core Data & Audience team as a founding member of our Data & AI engineering Centre of Excellence (COE) for audience and media measurement. The COE shapes delivery of our audience capabilities from a Data & Audience perspective and drives our data & AI platform evolution: a governed semantic layer, conversational analytics, and AI-ready data for the next phase of growth.
What you’ll do:
As Principal Data & AI Engineer within Cartology’s Data & Audience team, you set the technical direction for audience and measurement engineering across Woolworths Group data platforms. In this senior technical leadership role, you guide architecture, standards, and AI SDLC practices without direct reports, partnering with Product and Engineering managers to stand up the Data & AI Centre of Excellence. You architect end-to-end data foundations from fast, governed audience activation to post-campaign measurement ensuring every technical decision balances high engineering standards with commercial accuracy and clear revenue impact
- Set Technical Direction:Lead the architecture and engineering strategy for Cartology’s audience and measurement data platforms.
- Establish Engineering Standards:Define robust AI SDLC practices and technical benchmarks across Woolworths Group data systems.
- Lead Without Direct Reports:Drive technical excellence and team direction through direct architectural leadership and mentorship.
- Found the Data & AI COE:Help establish the Centre of Excellence for audience capability and media measurement.