Justworks

Manager, Data Engineering

Justworks$205K — $261K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years in hands-on data engineering focusing on pipelines and platform infrastructure
  • 1+ year in people management with a success record in team development
  • Deep proficiency in SQL and Python with recognized engineering judgment
  • Expertise in Snowflake schema design and data governance
  • Hands-on experience with cloud platforms, especially AWS and infrastructure-as-code tools

Responsibilities

  • Lead design and delivery of scalable data pipelines for analytics
  • Actively code, perform code reviews, and solve technical issues
  • Enhance operational excellence: data quality and cost optimization
  • Maintain infrastructure as code for auditability and resilience
  • Define best practices for testing, documentation, and CI/CD
  • Mentor and develop a team of data engineers while managing goals
  • Collaborate with data teams and business stakeholders to align on requirements

Benefits

  • Collaborative and diverse team culture
  • Commitment to personal and professional growth
  • Focus on operational excellence and innovation
  • Emphasis on strong communication and mentorship
  • Opportunities to work on highly impactful projects
Full Job Description
Department

Technology, Data & Analytics
About The Team

The Data & Analytics team is Justworks' data and AI center of excellence - a connected set of functions spanning business intelligence, data science, analytics engineering, platform data/ML engineering and AI builders. We've grown significantly over the last several years and continue to build momentum across the business, leveling up maturity in how we deliver insights, govern data, and enable the company to make better decisions. You'll find a highly collaborative & diverse group motivated by craft, shared learning, and a genuine commitment to growing our impact for customers while evolving how we work together for our people. Come build with us!

The Data Platform Engineering team sits at the core of this foundation, owning the pipelines, platform infrastructure, and reliability that every other DNA function depends on.
Who You Are

You are an experienced data engineer who has moved into leadership - with deep technical roots and a track record of shipping reliable, scalable pipelines and infrastructure. You are equally comfortable reviewing a pull request, unblocking a delivery problem, and developing the engineers on your team. You take ownership seriously - of the team's output, the platform's health, and the standards that keep both running well.

As Manager, Data Engineering, you will lead a team of engineers delivering against the data platform roadmap. You will own execution and delivery quality, keep your team productive and growing, and partner closely with analytics engineering, data science, and business stakeholders to ensure the platform delivers what downstream teams need.
Your Success Profile
What You Will Work On

Engineering & Delivery
  • Lead the design and delivery of scalable data pipelines that power analytics and business operations across Justworks
  • Take an active, hands-on role in coding, code review, and technical problem-solving alongside the team
  • Drive operational excellence within your team - observability, data quality, cost optimization, and delivery predictability
  • Maintain and evolve data infrastructure as code, ensuring the platform is auditable, repeatable, and resilient
  • Define and enforce engineering best practices - testing, documentation, CI/CD, and code review standards

People & Team Health
  • Manage, mentor, and develop a team of data engineers - setting goals, providing regular feedback, and building technical craft
  • Create an environment where engineers ship consistently, grow their skills, and take ownership of outcomes
  • Recruit and hire high-caliber data engineers as the team grows

Cross-Functional Partnership
  • Partner with analytics engineering, data science, BI, and business stakeholders to understand requirements and translate them into platform delivery
  • Collaborate with other engineering teams to align on data contracts, security, and compliance standards
  • Communicate delivery status, tradeoffs, and dependencies clearly to your Sr. Manager and cross-functional partners
How You Will Do Your Work

As a Manager, Data Platform Engineering,, how results are achieved is paramount for your success and ultimately results in our success as an organization. In this role, your foundational knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal attributes are anchored in the following competencies:
  • Plans & Aligns - Ensures individual actions support company mission; communicates effectively; understands urgency and plans accordingly
  • Balances Stakeholders - Understands internal and external stakeholder requirements, expectations, and needs and acts fairly despite conflicting demands of stakeholders.
  • Influence and leadership - fostering a community of knowledge-sharing, collaboration, mentorship, and forward-thinking across the organization.
  • Manages Complexity - Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems.
  • Good Judgment - Pauses before acting; asks questions to fully understand context; applies critical thinking and takes ownership of outcomes
  • Teamwork & Communication - Honors diverse thoughts and opinions; leverages unique skills to maximize efficiency
  • Skills and knowledge - the capacity to actively learn and apply specific domain knowledge, know-how, and best practices to continually enhance and improve.

In addition, all Justworkers focus on aligning their behaviors to our core values known as COGIS. It stands for:
  • Camaraderie - Day to day you can be seen working together toward a higher purpose. You like to have fun. You're an active listener, treat people respectfully, and have a strong desire to know and help others.
  • Openness - Your default is to be open. You're willing to share information, understand other perspectives, and consider new possibilities. You're curious, ask open questions, and are receptive to thoughts and feedback from others.
  • Grit - You demonstrate grit by having the courage to commit and persevere. You're committed, earnest, and dive in to get the job done well with a positive attitude.
  • Integrity - Simply put, do what you say and say what you'll do. You're honest and forthright, have a strong moral compass, and strive to match your words with your actions while leading by example.
  • Simplicity - Be like Einstein: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."
Qualifications

You're a builder who applies systems thinking to internal infrastructure. You're comfortable working across a diverse data organization and partnering with leadership to turn fragmented ways of working into scalable, durable systems.
  • 7+ years of professional hands-on experience in data engineering, with a focus on building data pipelines and platform infrastructure
  • 1+ years of people management experience, with a track record of developing engineers and building high-performing teams
  • Deep proficiency in SQL and Python; recognized by peers for technical rigor and sound engineering judgment
  • Strong experience with Snowflake - schema design, query optimization, cost governance, and data sharing
  • Strong foundational knowledge in data warehousing, ETL/ELT pipelines, and cloud data platforms
  • Experience with workflow orchestration, monitoring, and testing using tools such as Airflow, dbt, or equivalent
  • Expertise with AWS services (S3, Lambda, Fargate, Redshift, Kinesis, etc.) and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
  • Strong experience with data security, compliance, and governance in a production environment
  • Comfortable with ambiguity - able to identify what needs to be done, set clear milestones, and drive work forward
  • Strong communicator with the ability to engage technical and non-technical stakeholders effectively

Nice to have
  • Familiarity with data lakehouse patterns and cost optimization strategies at scale
  • Background in a regulated or compliance-sensitive environment (fintech, HR tech, healthcare)
Technologies Used
  • Languages: Python, SQL, Terraform
  • Data & Analytics: Snowflake, dbt, Fivetran
  • Streaming & CDC: Estuary
  • Workflow Orchestration: Airflow, MWAA
  • Cloud: AWS (S3, Lambda, Fargate, Redshift, Kinesis, Step Functions, EventBridge)
  • Observability & Monitoring: Datadog
  • CI/CD: CircleCI, GitHub Actions

The base wage range for this position based in our New York City Office is targeted at $205,000.00 - $261,500.00 per year.

#LI-DG2 #LI-Hybrid

Actual compensation is based on multiple factors that are unique to each candidate, including and not limited to skill set, level of relevant experience, and specific work location. Salary ranges for positions based in other locations may differ based on the cost of labor in that location.

For more information about Justworks' Total Reward Philosophy, including all of the perks and benefits we are proud to offer our team members, please visit Total Rewards @ Justworks.

About Justworks

Justworks is a professional employer organization (PEO) that provides payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance services to small and medium-sized businesses. The company's platform automates administrative tasks and provides access to health insurance, 401(k) plans, and other benefits. Justworks was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Learn more about Justworks
Size
1,000 employees
Industry
Founded
2012

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Justworks

More Information Technology Jobs

Find similar Manager, Data Engineering jobs: