WEX Inc

Principal Software Engineer - Data

WEX Inc$200K — $250K *
Information Technology
11 - 15 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 12-15+ years in software/platform engineering with extensive experience building large-scale data platforms.
  • Expertise in distributed systems, data acquisition, and semantic modeling with a history of architectural ownership for high-volume systems.
  • Ability to define cross-domain architectural standards and promote their adoption within engineering teams.
  • Strong knowledge of data lifecycle management including versioning, auditability, observability, and lineage.
  • Proficient in modern data technologies like streaming and batch processing tools, storage solutions, and orchestration frameworks.
  • Excellent communication and leadership skills to influence engineers and executives alike.
  • A strong passion for developing reliable, scalable, and empowering data platforms.

Responsibilities

  • Architect the end-to-end DaaS platform for WEX, covering all aspects of the data stack.
  • Establish platform standards and reusable frameworks to enhance efficiency and adoption.
  • Align data architecture with business goals by guiding technical strategy at scale.
  • Design robust systems to handle vast amounts of data while ensuring reliability and trustworthiness.
  • Mentor engineers to promote best practices in distributed systems and platform reliability.
  • Drive technological innovation by integrating modern open-source and cloud-native tools.
  • Facilitate collaboration among data teams to ensure data usability and consistency across the organization.

Benefits

  • Health, dental, and vision insurances.
  • Retirement savings plan with employer contributions.
  • Generous paid time off policy.
  • Health savings and flexible spending accounts.
  • Life and disability insurance.
  • Tuition reimbursement and continuing education support.
Full Job Description
About the Role

As a Principal Staff Software Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in shaping WEX's DaaS platform end-to-end. You will drive the unification of data acquisition, semantic modeling, and data products, ensuring they operate together as a coherent, scalable, and trusted foundation for analytics, AI, and customer-facing experiences.

This is not just a technical role-it is a platform architect and multiplier role, where you'll be responsible for defining cross-cutting patterns, guiding teams across domains, and raising the technical bar across WEX's data ecosystem. If you're motivated by solving platform problems at global scale, influencing enterprise direction, and leaving behind systems that endure, this is your role.

What You'll Do
  • Architect the DaaS platform end-to-end: Define the next generation of WEX's enterprise data stack spanning ingestion, semantic data modeling, metadata, and product delivery.
  • Establish platform standards: Set reusable frameworks for ingestion, modeling, lineage, observability, and access control that accelerate adoption across domains.
  • Guide technical strategy at scale: Partner with senior engineering, product, and business leaders to align data architecture with WEX's strategic objectives.
    Solve for scale, reliability, and trust: Design systems that handle billions of records, guarantee semantic consistency, and deliver auditable, governed data assets.
    Mentor and multiply: Coach senior staff engineers and architects, instilling best practices in distributed systems, platform reliability, and semantic clarity.
  • Drive innovation: Explore and incorporate modern open-source and cloud-native technologies (e.g., Spark, Iceberg, Kafka, Delta, DBT, Ray, ML-ready data services).
  • Be the bridge: Collaborate across Data Acquisition, Semantic Modeling, Data Products, and Governance teams to ensure WEX's data is trusted, consistent, and usable across every business domain.

What You Bring
  • 12-15+ years of experience in software or platform engineering, with a proven track record of building and scaling large-scale data platforms.
    Expertise in distributed systems, data acquisition, and semantic modeling, with architectural ownership of systems processing tens of millions to billions of records per day.
  • Demonstrated ability to set cross-domain architectural standards and influence adoption across multiple engineering teams.
  • Strong background in data lifecycle management (versioning, auditability, observability, lineage, reproducibility).
  • Deep experience with modern data ecosystems: streaming (Kafka, Flink), batch (Spark, DBT), storage (Iceberg, Delta), orchestration (Airflow, Dagster), and APIs.
  • Exceptional communication and leadership skills-you can inspire engineers, influence executives, and build consensus across technical and business stakeholders.
  • A passion for creating platforms that endure: trusted, consistent, and empowering for analytics, AI, and products enterprise-wide.


The base pay range represents the anticipated low and high end of the pay range for this position. Actual pay rates will vary and will be based on various factors, such as your qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. Base pay is one component of WEX's total compensation package. Most sales positions are eligible for commission under the terms of an applicable plan. Non-sales roles are typically eligible for a quarterly or annual bonus based on their role and applicable plan. WEX's comprehensive and market competitive benefits are designed to support your personal and professional well-being. Benefits include health, dental and vision insurances, retirement savings plan, paid time off, health savings account, flexible spending accounts, life insurance, disability insurance, tuition reimbursement, and more. For more information, check out the "About Us" section.

Pay Range: $200,600.00 - $250,400.00

About WEX Inc

WEX Inc is a provider of corporate payment solutions. The company operates in three segments: Fleet Solutions, Travel and Corporate Solutions, and Health and Employee Benefit Solutions. The Fleet Solutions segment provides payment and transaction processing services to commercial and government fleets. The Travel and Corporate Solutions segment focuses on providing payment solutions to businesses that have employees who travel for work. The Health and Employee Benefit Solutions segment provides healthcare payment products and software, as well as payroll and HR solutions.
Learn more about WEX Inc
Size
5,600 employees
Market Cap
$6.9 billion
Industry
Net Income
-$243.6 million
Founded
1983
5 Year Trend
+12.8%
Revenue
$1.5 billion
NASDAQ

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