Data Reliability Engineer

Empower$87K — $123K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 4-6 years of experience with system architecture (application, data, integration, infrastructure)
  • 4+ years of hands-on AWS experience including services like Redshift, DynamoDB, and EMR
  • Strong SQL skills with experience in modern databases (Redshift, DynamoDB)
  • 4+ years of Python experience related to scripting and automation
  • Experience with incident management and customer-impacting systems

Responsibilities

  • Improve the reliability and performance of core data platforms
  • Provide operational support for distributed data systems
  • Collaborate with engineering teams for ongoing improvements
  • Support and optimize EMR workloads and data pipelines
  • Design and implement observability frameworks
  • Lead incident response and troubleshooting efforts
  • Create and maintain operational documentation

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
  • 401(k) plan with generous company matching contributions
  • Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250/year
  • Generous paid time off program
  • Paid volunteer time of 16 hours per year
  • Leave of absence programs including paid parental leave
Full Job Description
We are looking for a hands-on Data Reliability Engineer to own the reliability, stability, and operational excellence of our AWS-based data platform.

This role is focused on operating, troubleshooting, and improving production data systems, ensuring that data pipelines and analytics platforms are resilient, performant, and meet business-critical SLAs.

You will work closely with data and platform engineering teams to diagnose issues, resolve production incidents, and influence better design and operational practices across the data ecosystem.

What You Will Do
  • Own the reliability and stability of production data pipelines and data platform services
  • Diagnose and resolve data pipeline failures, delays, and data quality issues in production environments
  • Investigate issues across distributed data systems (e.g., Spark/EMR workloads, ingestion pipelines, warehouse performance)
  • Lead or support incident response, including triage, mitigation, and long-term resolution
  • Perform root cause analysis (RCA) and implement durable fixes to prevent recurrence
  • Define and improve data SLAs (freshness, latency, completeness) and ensure adherence
  • Design and enhance monitoring, alerting, and observability for data systems
  • Develop automation and tooling to reduce operational toil and improve system resilience
  • Contribute to disaster recovery (DR) and resiliency planning, including backup validation and recovery workflows
  • Partner with engineering teams to improve pipeline design, reliability, and operational readiness
  • Create and maintain runbooks, SOPs, and operational documentation
  • Participate in occasional off-hours support for production data systems when required

What You Will Bring
  • Minimum 5 years of experience working with production data platforms in AWS environments
  • Prior experience building data pipelines and seeing them through production, including exposure to real-world failures and operational challenges
  • Strong experience with Python and SQL in real data systems
  • Hands-on experience troubleshooting distributed data processing systems (e.g., Spark/EMR, Redshift, streaming systems)
  • Proven ability to debug and resolve production issues in data pipelines and data platforms
  • Experience with AWS data services (such as EMR, Redshift, DynamoDB, S3, or similar)
  • Experience handling production incidents and performing root cause analysis
  • Strong problem-solving mindset and ability to work through ambiguous production issues

What Will Set You Apart
  • Experience handling real-world data issues such as pipeline delays or failures
  • Experience with backfills and reprocessing
  • Experience with late-arriving or incomplete data
  • Experience improving observability and alerting specifically for data systems
  • Experience influencing or guiding data pipeline reliability and operational practices
  • Exposure to streaming/event-driven systems (Kafka, Kinesis, CDC patterns)
  • Experience with disaster recovery, backup validation, and resiliency testing
  • Strong communication during incidents with both technical and non-technical stakeholders


This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications of the job. The employer has the right to revise this job description at any time. You will be evaluated in part based on your performance of the responsibilities and/or tasks listed in this job description. You may be required perform other duties that are not included on this job description. The job description is not a contract for employment, and either you or the employer may terminate employment at any time, for any reason.

What we offer you

We offer an array of diverse and inclusive benefits regardless of where you are in your career. We believe that providing our employees with the means to lead healthy balanced lives results in the best possible work performance.
  • Medical, dental, vision and life insurance
  • Retirement savings - 401(k) plan with generous company matching contributions (up to 6%), financial advisory services, potential company discretionary contribution, and a broad investment lineup
  • Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250/year
  • Business-casual environment that includes the option to wear jeans
  • Generous paid time off upon hire - including a paid time off program plus ten paid company holidays and three floating holidays each calendar year
  • Paid volunteer time - 16 hours per calendar year
  • Leave of absence programs - including paid parental leave, paid short- and long-term disability, and Family and Medical Leave (FMLA)
  • Business Resource Groups (BRGs) - BRGs facilitate inclusion and collaboration across our business internally and throughout the communities where we live, work and play. BRGs are open to all.


Base Salary Range
$87,400.00 - $123,400.00

The salary range above shows the typical minimum to maximum base salary range for this position in the location listed. Non-sales positions have the opportunity to participate in a bonus program. Sales positions are eligible for sales incentives, and in some instances a bonus plan, whereby total compensation may far exceed base salary depending on individual performance. Actual compensation offered may vary from posted hiring range based upon geographic location, work experience, education, licensure requirements and/or skill level and will be finalized at the time of offer.

About Empower

Empower is a retirement plan recordkeeping financial holding company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, United States. It is the second-largest retirement plan provider in the United States.
Learn more about Empower

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