Staff Data Engineer

Jellyfish

$120K — $160K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years in building and scaling data pipelines.
  • Strong expertise in Python for reliable, maintainable systems.
  • Experience with infrastructure as code using Terraform or similar.
  • Familiarity with AI/LLM tool integrations and their infrastructure demands.
  • Production experience with workflow orchestration tools like Prefect or Airflow.
  • Proven track record of owning complex data infrastructure end-to-end.
  • Exceptional communication skills, capable of conveying technical concepts to various audiences.

Responsibilities

  • Define the architecture and technical direction for data pipelines and integrations.
  • Drive third-party tool integrations and establish integration standards.
  • Own the infrastructure as code strategy using Terraform.
  • Architect systems for near-real-time and batch data processing.
  • Lead the design of data export pipelines to meet diverse customer needs.
  • Develop internal tooling to enhance engineering velocity.
  • Communicate technical decisions and project statuses to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Benefits

  • Team-oriented, performance-driven culture prioritizing having fun and achieving success.
  • Valuable experience in a rapidly scaling environment with emphasis on technical rigor.
  • Opportunities for mentorship and knowledge sharing within the engineering team.
Full Job Description
Staff Data Engineer

What You'll Do
  • Define the architecture and long-term technical direction, design and implementation of our data pipelines and integrations platform for storage, transformation and export at scale.
  • Drive integrations with third-party tools and establish the standards that make future integrations faster and more reliable
  • Own our infrastructure as code strategy using Terraform, and contribute to how we evolve our cloud data infrastructure
  • Architect workflow orchestration systems for near-real-time and batch data processing, with a focus on reliability and scalability
  • Lead the design and implementation of data export pipelines that serve diverse customer needs
  • Spearhead development of internal tooling and agentic workflows that meaningfully accelerate engineering velocity across the org
  • Serve as a technical anchor - leading design reviews, mentoring engineers, and elevating how the team approaches complex problems
  • Partner with engineering leadership on roadmap prioritization, cross-team dependencies, and org-wide technical strategy
  • Communicate clearly about technical decisions, tradeoffs, and project status to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders


About You
  • You have deep expertise building and scaling data pipelines, and a track record of owning complex data infrastructure end-to-end - not just contributing to it
  • AI - driven developer who dives deep into AI first workflows
  • Expert Python engineer with strong opinions about how to build reliable, maintainable systems at scale
  • Designed and led large-scale third-party API integration work, and you know what separates a maintainable integration from a brittle one
  • Fluent in infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation, or similar) and think about infrastructure as a product, not an afterthought
  • Experienced with AI/LLM tool integrations (Claude, Copilot, etc.) and understand the unique infrastructure demands they create
  • You have production experience with workflow orchestration tools (Prefect, Airflow, Dagster) and can make the hard architectural calls
  • A natural technical leader - you build consensus, unblock others, and make the engineers around you better
  • You think in systems: you consider user needs, business impact, and long-term maintainability when designing solutions
  • Exceptional communicator who can write a design doc, lead a review, and distill a complex tradeoff for any audience
  • Located in EST or CST time zone

Bonus points if:
  • You've thrived at a rapidly scaling startup and know how to balance speed with technical rigor
  • You have hands-on experience with Delta Lake and lakehouse architectures
  • You've built deep integrations with developer tools (Jira, GitHub, GitLab, CI/CD systems) and have strong opinions about how to do it well
  • You bring strong perspectives on how engineering teams work best - and the tools that help or hurt

A list of job experiences and qualification requirements is great, but humility, a performance-driven attitude, and a team-player approach are most important to us. We love to have fun and win in the process. We only hire people who have a passion for building great companies in an environment where a sense of humor is a must.

Occasional travel may be required.

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the US. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa at this time.

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