Senior Data Engineer - Data Engineering

Plaid1 weeks ago

Location

San Francisco

Type

Full Time

Salary

USD 180,000 – 250,000

Level

Senior

Role

Data Engineer

Posted

Mar 5, 2026

Full TimeSenior

The role

Summary

Plaid is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to build robust golden datasets and power their data-driven decision-making processes. The ideal candidate will design and maintain complex data pipelines, collaborating across teams to create scalable data infrastructure that supports Plaid's mission of transforming financial interactions.

What you'll do

Data Strategy Development: Understand Plaid's product and strategy to inform golden dataset choices, design, and data usage principles

Data Pipeline Management: Own and develop core SQL and Python data pipelines powering the data lake and data warehouse

Data Quality Assurance: Ensure high-quality, well-documented datasets with defined quality metrics, uptime, and usefulness

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Lead data engineering projects and collaborate with engineering, product, business intelligence, and data analysis teams

Technology Advancement: Advocate for and adopt industry-leading tools and practices at the right time

What we look for

Technical

Data Pipeline TechnologiesExperience building batch and real-time pipelines using Spark, Kafka

Data WarehousingProficiency with performant warehouses and data lakes like Redshift, Snowflake, Databricks

Data Orchestration ToolsExpertise in SQL data orchestration tools like DBT, Mode, and Airflow

Education

DegreeBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or related technical field preferred

Experience

Professional Experience4+ years of dedicated data engineering experience solving complex data pipeline issues at scale

Large Dataset ManagementExperience building data models and pipelines on datasets ranging from 500TB to petabytes

Skills

Required skills

SQLAdvanced SQL skills with ability to use as a flexible and extensible tool

PythonProficient Python programming for data engineering tasks

Data ModelingStrong schema design skills and ability to evolve analytics schemas

Nice to have

Cloud PlatformsExperience with AWS, GCP, or Azure cloud services

Machine LearningUnderstanding of data preparation for machine learning pipelines

Compensation & benefits

Salary

USD 180,000 – 250,000 (annual)

Stock options

Available

Benefits

Inclusive Culture

Diverse and equitable work environment committed to financial freedom

Professional Growth

Opportunities to learn best practices and upskill with a strong data engineering team

Impact-Driven Work

High-impact role enabling data-driven business decisions

Interview process

1
Initial Screening — Phone or video call with recruiting team to discuss background and experience
2
Technical Assessment — Data engineering skills test and problem-solving challenge
3
Team Interview — Multiple interviews with data engineering team members
4
Leadership Interview — Discussion with senior leadership about vision and potential contribution
5
Final Offer — Comprehensive offer including salary, benefits, and equity details