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 COE

Cartology 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 maturing 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 rapid, 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.
- Partner with Leadership: Collaborate closely with Product and Senior Engineering Managers to shape delivery scope and platform roadmaps.
- Build End-to-End Solutions: Architect the complete data lifecycle, from rapid audience creation to comprehensive post-campaign reporting.
- Embed Commercial Guardrails:



Ensure governance, privacy, and business logic are engineered directly into the data platform.
- Drive Business Impact: Align complex technical designs with commercial accuracy, revenue goals, and proven brand value.

What You’ll Bring

We are looking for a commercially fluent, ad-tech native Principal Data & AI Engineer who takes complete ownership of outcomes and interrogated business needs before writing code. You bring deep, hands on experience with ad logs, audience segmentation, platform reporting, and data clean rooms, understanding that accuracy is paramount when brand investments are on the line. As an AI-forward technical leader, you set the standard for how engineering teams build with AI while easily translating complex measurement logic for business stakeholders. Above all, you measure your personal success by the quality, reliability, and business impact of the platforms your fellow engineers ship.

- Proven Platform Architecture: 8+ years in data engineering, with proven experience designing large scale data platforms in BigQuery, Snowflake, or Redshift.
- Core Technical Expertise: Mastery of SQL, Python, dbt, and Airflow, with a strong track record of building scalable data foundations.
- Ad-Tech Domain Knowledge: Deep experience with ad logs, audience segmentation, platform reporting, and campaign measurement within retail media, publishers, or agencies.
- Technical Leadership: Skilled in guiding senior engineers, conducting design reviews, and raising engineering standards without needing direct reports.
- AI & SDLC Enablement: Hands-on experience driving AI-assisted engineering practices, governance guardrails,

📌 Principal Data (Sydney)
🏢 Woolworths Group
📍 Sydney