Senior Data Engineer

About the Role

We're looking for a Sr. Data Engineer to shape the future of our data platform. You'll architect scalable systems, set technical direction, and build the frameworks that enable our data organization to operate at scale. This is a high-leverage role where your work multiplies the effectiveness of the entire team.

What You'll Do

Platform Architecture & Strategy

Own the technical roadmap for our data platform, making architectural decisions that balance scalability, cost, and maintainability
Evaluate and champion new technologies and tools, leading adoption across the organization
Design systems for terabyte-scale data processing with a focus on performance and cost optimization
Establish data engineering standards, patterns, and best practices that elevate team quality
Model infrastructure costs and drive efficiency initiatives across Snowflake and cloud platforms

Advanced Technical Work

Design and build scalable infrastructure for AI/ML workloads, including model training pipelines, feature engineering systems, and AI agent platforms
Build reusable frameworks and internal platforms that abstract complexity for other engineers
Design complex data models for critical business domains, balancing normalization, performance, and usability
Architect real-time/streaming data infrastructure for low-latency use cases
Engineer solutions for large-dataset performance challenges (Snowflake clustering, micro-partitioning, query optimization)
Create sophisticated data-contract validators and schema evolution frameworks
Develop profiling and drift detection systems that ensure data quality at scale

Technical Leadership

Conduct design reviews and provide architectural guidance for major initiatives
Lead incident response for critical data systems and drive blameless post-mortems
Define SLAs and reliability standards for data products
Mentor and upskill data engineers through pairing, code reviews, and technical discussions
Lead cross-functional projects with analytics, data science, and product teams

Operational Excellence

Build data observability platforms with intelligent alerting and monitoring
Perform capacity planning and scalability analysis for the entire data stack
Benchmark performance across infrastructure to identify optimization opportunities
Design self-service tools that enable analytics engineers and analysts to work independently

What You Bring

Technical Depth

Deep expertise with modern data warehouses (Snowflake strongly preferred) including advanced optimization techniques
Strong foundations in distributed systems, data structures, and algorithms
Production experience building high-volume data pipelines and ETL/ELT systems
Proficiency in Python/SQL and orchestration tools (Airflow, dbt, or similar)
Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP) and infrastructure-as-code

Strategic Thinking

Track record of making architectural decisions with long-term impact
Ability to evaluate tradeoffs between competing approaches
Experience balancing technical excellence with business pragmatism
Proven ability to drive technical strategy across an organization

Leadership & Communication

History of mentoring engineers and raising team capabilities
Excellent written and verbal communication for technical and non-technical audiences
Ability to build consensus and influence without direct authority
Experience leading projects across multiple teams

Bonus Points

Experience with streaming systems (Kafka, Flink, etc.)
Data mesh or domain-oriented architecture implementation
Open source contributions or technical writing
Background in analytics engineering or data modeling

You'll Thrive Here If

You think in systems and frameworks, not just individual solutions
You're energized by making other engineers more effective
You balance perfectionism with pragmatic delivery
You're comfortable with ambiguity and defining your own projects
You care deeply about code quality, documentation, and operational excellence

United States Base Pay Range

$155,000—$193,000 USD

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

About CircleCI

CircleCI is the world’s largest continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform, and the hub where code moves from idea to delivery. As one of the most-used DevOps tools - processing more than 3 million jobs a day - CircleCI has unique access to data on how the most effective engineering teams work, and the tools to help software companies successfully leverage the power of AI into their commercial applications. Companies like Hinge, HuggingFace, and Samsung use us to improve engineering team productivity, release better products, and get to market faster.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in downtown San Francisco with a global, remote workforce, CircleCI is venture-backed by Base10, Greenspring Associates, Eleven Prime, IVP, Sapphire Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, Baseline Ventures, Threshold
Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Owl Rock Capital, Next Equity Partners, Heavybit, and Harrison Metal Capital.

CircleCI is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

Senior Data Engineer