# Engineering Manager, Data Platform
**Company:** [Sentry](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/sentry)
Lead the Events Analytics Platform team at Sentry, managing a critical data infrastructure that processes petabytes of telemetry data for 200,000+ organizations. This Engineering Manager role combines hands-on technical leadership with architectural oversight of distributed systems using ClickHouse, requiring deep expertise in analytical databases, large-scale data platforms, and the ability to mentor a team while driving production reliability and performance at massive scale.
**Role:** Engineering Manager
**Seniority:** Manager
**Locations:** San Francisco, California
**Salary:** 220000–400000 USD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sentry/f9f3c913-26ef-45a2-a77f-79ae473c1a85)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/sentry/engineering-manager-data-platform-f9f3c913
---
## Responsibilities

- Lead and Develop Engineering Team: Recruit, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of engineers working on large-scale distributed data systems. Foster technical excellence, promote ownership and collaboration, and support professional growth through clear feedback and development opportunities.
- Drive Technical Execution and Architectural Decisions: Own technical strategy for the Events Analytics Platform's storage and query infrastructure. Make informed architectural decisions that balance scalability, reliability, performance, and long-term maintainability while navigating complex distributed systems tradeoffs.
- Build and Evolve Analytical Data Systems: Design and implement analytical data systems capable of supporting complex queries, high-throughput workloads, and efficient analysis of petabytes of event data. Drive innovations in storage architecture, query optimization, and compute resource utilization.
- Guide Platform Architecture Evolution: Lead the modernization of EAP's infrastructure including query optimization strategies, storage and compute separation, event data unification, and integration of different telemetry types into a cohesive analytical platform.
- Own Platform Operational Health: Lead reliability and performance initiatives for the platform. Manage incident response, troubleshoot production issues, optimize system performance under load, and scale infrastructure to handle growing data volumes and user demands.
- Collaborate with Product Engineering Teams: Partner with product teams to understand technical requirements and translate them into platform capabilities. Make informed tradeoffs between product needs and infrastructure constraints, ensuring the data platform directly supports customer-facing features.
- Support AI-Powered Capabilities: Ensure the analytical platform efficiently serves the complex workloads and production context required by Seer, Sentry's AI-powered debugging agent, enabling AI systems to investigate and resolve issues at scale.
- Execute and Prioritize Projects: Set clear project priorities and drive initiatives from technical design through production deployment. Help the team execute effectively while managing competing technical and product demands.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Computer Science or Related Field","description":"Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or equivalent practical software engineering experience demonstrating foundational knowledge of systems design principles."}

### technical

- {"name":"Distributed Systems Architecture","description":"Deep expertise in designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems with understanding of consistency models, fault tolerance, data replication, and system scalability patterns."}
- {"name":"Analytical Database Expertise","description":"Hands-on experience operating, scaling, or optimizing analytical database systems such as ClickHouse, Apache Pinot, Apache Druid, or similar OLAP technologies in production environments at significant scale."}
- {"name":"Data Infrastructure and Storage Systems","description":"Strong understanding of data storage architectures, columnar formats, data warehousing principles, query engines, and the engineering challenges of processing massive data volumes efficiently."}
- {"name":"Query Optimization and Performance Tuning","description":"Demonstrated ability to optimize complex analytical queries, analyze query performance bottlenecks, and implement efficient data storage and indexing strategies for high-throughput analytical workloads."}
- {"name":"Production Systems Operations","description":"Proven ownership of production systems including incident response, debugging complex production issues, monitoring and observability implementation, and continuous performance optimization."}
- {"name":"Backend Programming","description":"Proficiency with backend programming languages such as Python, Rust, Go, or Java for implementing data infrastructure components, services, and operational tooling."}

### experience

- {"name":"Engineering Management Experience","description":"Minimum 3-5 years managing software engineers and engineering teams. Demonstrated ability to lead through technical challenges, develop team members, and drive engineering execution and project delivery."}
- {"name":"Large-Scale Data Platform Experience","description":"Significant experience building or scaling sophisticated data-intensive systems, data platforms, or analytical infrastructure. Meaningful ownership of architecture, performance, and reliability of data systems handling massive throughput."}
- {"name":"Technical Leadership and Execution","description":"Proven track record leading engineering projects from technical design through implementation and production deployment. Demonstrated ability to make architectural decisions and navigate complex technical tradeoffs."}
- {"name":"Production System Ownership","description":"5+ years working on production systems with demonstrated responsibility for troubleshooting complex issues, incident management, performance optimization, and driving operational improvements."}
- {"name":"Cross-Functional Collaboration","description":"Experience working closely with product teams, stakeholders, and other infrastructure teams to translate requirements into engineering solutions while communicating technical concepts clearly."}
- {"name":"Observability and Developer Tools","description":"Experience building or working on infrastructure for observability platforms, telemetry systems, developer tools, or event-driven applications is highly valuable."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Distributed Systems Design","description":"Ability to architect and reason about large-scale distributed systems including scalability, fault tolerance, consistency guarantees, and replication strategies."}
- {"name":"Analytical Database Systems","description":"Deep knowledge of OLAP systems, column-oriented databases, and experience with ClickHouse, Pinot, Druid, or similar analytical databases in production."}
- {"name":"Technical Leadership","description":"Proven ability to lead engineering teams through complex technical challenges, make sound architectural decisions, and mentor engineers to develop their technical skills."}
- {"name":"Data Infrastructure Development","description":"Experience designing and implementing data systems including storage architectures, query engines, data processing pipelines, and high-throughput data infrastructure."}
- {"name":"Production Systems Management","description":"Strong background in operating and maintaining production systems, incident response, performance monitoring, and driving operational excellence."}
- {"name":"System Performance Optimization","description":"Demonstrated expertise in identifying performance bottlenecks, optimizing complex systems, and balancing performance with reliability and maintainability."}
- {"name":"Technical Communication","description":"Ability to clearly articulate technical concepts to both engineering teams and non-technical stakeholders, making complex tradeoffs understandable."}

### preferred

- {"name":"ClickHouse Expertise","description":"Hands-on experience deploying, operating, scaling, and optimizing ClickHouse clusters in production environments."}
- {"name":"Query Optimization","description":"Specialized knowledge in query planning, optimization techniques, and analytical query performance tuning for large datasets."}
- {"name":"Storage Engine Architecture","description":"Understanding of storage engines, compression algorithms, data organization strategies, and architectural patterns for efficient data access."}
- {"name":"High-Throughput Data Processing","description":"Experience with systems processing petabytes of data, managing high-throughput data pipelines, and handling extreme data volume challenges."}
- {"name":"Python","description":"Proficiency in Python for building data infrastructure, operational tooling, and automation scripts."}
- {"name":"Rust","description":"Experience with Rust for building high-performance systems components and infrastructure tools."}
- {"name":"Telemetry and Observability Systems","description":"Background building or managing telemetry collection, event processing, observability platforms, or monitoring infrastructure."}
- {"name":"Developer Tools Infrastructure","description":"Experience developing infrastructure or platforms that directly support developer productivity and developer experience."}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Container orchestration platform for deploying and managing scalable data infrastructure at scale."}
- {"name":"Docker","description":"Containerization technology for packaging and deploying data platform components consistently."}
- {"name":"Prometheus","description":"Monitoring and alerting system for observing data platform performance and reliability metrics."}
- {"name":"Grafana","description":"Visualization and dashboarding tool for monitoring data system health and performance indicators."}

### others

- {"name":"OLAP Systems","description":"Expertise in online analytical processing systems and columnar database architecture for complex analytical queries."}
- {"name":"Telemetry Data Processing","description":"Specialized knowledge in handling observability data, event streams, traces, and performance metrics at massive scale."}
- {"name":"Distributed Query Execution","description":"Understanding of query planners, distributed query optimization, and federated query execution across data systems."}
- {"name":"Time-Series Analysis","description":"Experience with time-series data patterns, optimization techniques for time-based queries, and temporal data management."}

### databases

- {"name":"ClickHouse","description":"Core analytical database technology used by Sentry for petabyte-scale event data storage, querying, and real-time analysis."}
- {"name":"Apache Pinot","description":"Alternative OLAP database system for real-time analytics and high-throughput distributed analytics."}
- {"name":"Apache Druid","description":"Real-time OLAP datastore designed for low-latency queries on large datasets."}

### languages

- {"name":"Python","description":"Used for data infrastructure tools, operational automation, and backend services in the data platform ecosystem."}
- {"name":"Rust","description":"Used for high-performance systems components, critical infrastructure services, and performance-sensitive data processing tools."}
- {"name":"Go","description":"Used for building scalable backend services and infrastructure components within data systems."}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Apache Arrow","description":"In-memory columnar format for efficient data processing and interchange across analytical systems."}
- {"name":"Apache Kafka","description":"Event streaming platform used for high-throughput data ingestion and real-time event processing pipelines."}
- {"name":"Spark","description":"Distributed data processing framework used for analytical workloads and data transformation at scale."}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Equity Grants","description":"Participate in Sentry's equity compensation programs, aligning your interests with long-term company growth and success."}
- {"name":"Performance Bonus","description":"Annual performance bonus of up to 15% of base salary based on individual and company performance."}
- {"name":"Health Insurance Coverage","description":"Comprehensive group health insurance plans covering medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents."}
- {"name":"Paid Time Off","description":"Generous paid time off policy for vacation, sick days, and personal time to maintain work-life balance."}
- {"name":"Professional Development","description":"Opportunities for continuous learning, technical growth, and career development through internal programs and external training."}
- {"name":"Inclusive Work Culture","description":"Commitment to building a diverse and inclusive workplace where all team members can thrive and contribute their perspectives."}
- {"name":"Remote Work Options","description":"Flexible work arrangements that support distributed teams and work-life balance."}

## Compensation

- **max:** 400000
- **min:** 220000
- **currency:** USD
- **stockOptions:** true

## Interview process

### steps

- {"name":"Initial Screening Call","description":"Conversation with a recruiter to discuss your background, motivation for the role, and alignment with Sentry's mission. Expect to discuss your experience with data infrastructure and engineering management."}
- {"name":"Technical Leadership Conversation","description":"Deep-dive discussion with the hiring manager about your technical background in distributed systems, data platforms, and specific experience with analytical databases like ClickHouse."}
- {"name":"Architectural Design Discussion","description":"Technical conversation focused on system design, architectural decisions, and how you approach complex technical tradeoffs in data infrastructure at scale."}
- {"name":"Engineering Management Assessment","description":"Discussion about your leadership philosophy, experience developing engineers, handling team dynamics, and driving technical execution."}
- {"name":"Cross-Functional Collaboration Round","description":"Conversation with product or infrastructure stakeholders to assess your ability to collaborate, communicate technical concepts, and balance competing priorities."}
- {"name":"Final Interview with Leadership","description":"Final round with senior engineering leadership or executive team to discuss strategic vision, long-term goals, and cultural fit with Sentry."}

## Full description
## **About Sentry**

Software runs the world and the pace is faster than ever. Sentry helps developers fix errors and performance issues before users notice, so teams can spend less time firefighting and more time building.

Trusted by 200,000+ organizations, Sentry is today’s application monitoring standard and our team is building its AI-native future.

# About the role

Sentry helps over 4 million developers understand and resolve issues in their applications. Behind every error, performance trace, replay, and log is a large-scale data platform responsible for storing, querying, and analyzing massive volumes of telemetry data.

We're looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Events Analytics Platform (EAP) team, which builds and operates the distributed data systems powering Sentry's products. The team manages petabytes of data and develops high-performance analytical infrastructure using technologies like ClickHouse, enabling fast, complex queries across billions of records.

As Sentry grows, so do the technical challenges. The team is evolving its storage and query infrastructure to support increasing data volumes, more complex analytical workloads, and unified access to different types of telemetry data. EAP also provides the data foundation for Seer, Sentry's AI-powered debugging agent, enabling AI systems to access the production context needed to investigate and resolve issues.

In this role, you'll lead a team of engineers tackling complex distributed systems challenges while balancing architectural improvements with the reliability and performance of production systems. You'll bring strong technical judgment, guide engineering decisions, and work closely with product engineering teams to build capabilities that directly impact the developer experience.

This is an opportunity to lead a critical part of Sentry's infrastructure, solve challenging problems at scale, and shape how developers and AI-powered tools interact with application data.

## What you'll do

* Lead and develop a team of engineers working on large-scale distributed data systems, fostering technical excellence, ownership, collaboration, and professional growth.
* Drive technical execution and architectural decisions across EAP's storage and query infrastructure, balancing scalability, reliability, performance, and long-term maintainability.
* Build and evolve analytical data systems supporting complex queries, high-throughput workloads, and efficient access to petabytes of event data.
* Guide the evolution of EAP's architecture, including query optimization, storage and compute separation, and the unification of different event types into a common analytical platform.
* Own the operational health of the platform, leading efforts to improve reliability, troubleshoot production issues, manage incidents, and address scaling challenges.
* Partner with product engineering teams to understand their technical requirements, make informed tradeoffs, and deliver platform capabilities that support new product experiences.
* Support Sentry's AI-powered capabilities by ensuring the platform efficiently serves the analytical workloads and production context required by Seer and other AI-driven experiences.
* Set clear priorities and drive projects from design through production, helping the team execute effectively while managing competing technical and product needs.

## You'll love this job if you

* Enjoy leading engineers while staying closely involved in technical discussions, architecture, and complex problem-solving.
* Get excited about building and operating large-scale distributed systems where performance, reliability, and efficiency matter.
* Have a strong interest in analytical databases, storage engines, query systems, and the engineering challenges behind processing massive volumes of data.
* Like working through difficult technical tradeoffs and turning ambiguous requirements into practical engineering solutions.
* Take pride in building reliable production systems, understanding how they behave under load, and continuously improving their performance.
* Enjoy collaborating with product engineering teams and understanding how infrastructure decisions influence the end-user experience.
* Want to lead a team whose work directly supports Sentry's core products and growing AI-powered capabilities.

## Qualifications

* Significant professional software engineering experience, including experience managing and developing engineers, leading technical projects, and driving engineering execution.
* Strong technical background in distributed systems, data infrastructure, analytical databases, or large-scale backend systems.
* Hands-on experience building, scaling, or operating complex data-intensive systems, with depth in at least one of the following:

  * **Analytical database infrastructure:** Operating, scaling, optimizing, or maintaining OLAP systems such as ClickHouse, Apache Pinot, Apache Druid, or similar technologies in production.
  * **Complex distributed data platforms:** Designing and building sophisticated systems using analytical databases or distributed storage technologies as foundational components, with meaningful ownership of the underlying architecture, performance, and reliability.
* Experience making architectural decisions and technical tradeoffs involving system scalability, performance, reliability, or operational complexity.
* Demonstrated ownership of production systems, including troubleshooting, incident response, performance optimization, and operational improvements.
* Experience leading engineering projects from technical design through implementation, deployment, and ongoing operations.
* Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to work with cross-functional stakeholders and translate technical requirements into actionable engineering priorities.

**Bonus points for:**

* Experience with ClickHouse, Pinot, Druid, or other column-oriented analytical databases.
* Experience with query optimization, analytical storage architecture, or high-throughput data processing.
* Experience building infrastructure for observability, telemetry, developer tools, or event-driven applications.
* Experience working closely with product engineering teams to develop infrastructure supporting customer-facing features.
* Proficiency with Python, Rust, or similar backend programming languages.

Not sure if you meet 100% of the qualifications? We encourage you to apply anyway. We're interested in people who are excited about this opportunity and eager to grow.

The base salary range that Sentry reasonably expects to pay for this position is $220,000 to $400,000 USD,plus an annual performance bonus of up to 15% of base salary. A successful candidate’s actual base salary (or hourly wage) amount will be determined by a variety of relevant factors including, without limitation, the candidate’s work location, education, work and other relevant experience, skills, and job-related knowledge. A successful candidate will be eligible to participate in Sentry’s employee benefit plans/programs applicable to the candidate’s position (including incentive compensation, equity grants, paid time off, and group health insurance coverage). See [Sentry Benefits](https://sentry.io/careers/) for more details about the Company’s benefit plans/programs.

## **Equal Opportunity at Sentry**

Sentry is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to its employees and candidates for employment regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, or other legally-protected characteristic. This commitment includes the provision of reasonable accommodations to employees and candidates for employment with physical or mental disabilities who require such accommodations in order to (a) perform the essential functions of their jobs, or (b) seek employment with Sentry. We strive to build a diverse team, with an inclusive culture where every teammate can thrive. Sentry is an open-source company because we believe that everyone, everywhere, should have the ability and tools to make great software. Software should be accessible. That starts with making our industry accessible.

If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [accommodations@sentry.io](mailto:accommodations@sentry.io).

Want to learn more about how Sentry handles applicant data? Get the details in our [Applicant Privacy Policy](https://sentry.io/careers/applicantprivacy/).