Senior Data Engineer

Collectors is building the data foundations that power analytics, reporting, and AI agents, and this role sits at the center of that effort. As a hands-on senior individual contributor, you will design, build, and take ownership of platform pipelines and reliability practices that go well beyond the warehouse.

What you’ll do

• Build and own core data platform components across ingestion (Hevo, Estuary), the Google BigQuery warehouse, and the dbt transformation layer, delivering systems that are scalable, reliable, and secure.
• Shape technical direction by contributing to architecture, writing design documents, participating in design reviews, and collaborating with senior technical leaders.
• Design and maintain batch and CDC ingestion pipelines for operational databases, SaaS applications, and ERP systems, and evaluate tooling trade-offs with a clear point of view.
• Develop end-to-end workflows with AI coding agents, using Claude Code and similar tools daily while helping refine practices and guardrails for fast, safe, high-quality delivery.
• Improve reliability and observability through testing, monitoring, alerting, and on-call practices so data arrives on time, remains trusted, and failures are detected early.
• Apply governance and controls, including access models, auditability, and operational rigor across the pipelines and datasets you own.
• Help establish agentic analytics foundations by delivering well-modeled, well-governed data that agents and MCP connections can rely on.
• Partner with analytics engineers, analysts, and stakeholders to translate data needs into durable platform capabilities and unblock high-value use cases.
• Build tooling and services beyond the warehouse, including APIs, automated jobs, and internal Python tools that extend access to data beyond SQL.
• Support team quality through thoughtful code review, pairing, and knowledge sharing to improve consistency across the engineering organization.
• Explore next-generation warehouse approaches through hands-on proofs of concept, including lakehouse patterns, open table formats, and alternative query engines.

Key skills and experience

• 5+ years building production data platforms and pipelines, with experience independently owning and delivering complex projects.
• Deep hands-on experience in the modern data stack, including cloud data warehousing (BigQuery or equivalent), dbt, and modern ingestion tooling, with the ability to weigh buy versus build decisions.
• Strong design communication through writing and in-person discussions, including clear explanations of trade-offs.
• Fluency in AI-assisted development, with real experience building using Claude Code or a similar coding agent.
• A reliability-first mindset, with experience establishing testing, observability, and practices that keep pipelines dependable.
• Governance-aware execution, applying access controls, auditability, and data-quality safeguards to build trust.
• Technical collaboration through mentoring, code review, and sharing knowledge with engineers across levels.
• Strong SQL and Python, comfort with version control, CI/CD, and testing workflows, and the ability to explain technical work to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfort managing cloud infrastructure components beyond the warehouse, including serverless compute, storage, and secrets on major clouds such as GCP or AWS.
• Curiosity about where the data stack is heading, including tracking lakehouse patterns and query engine developments and evaluating new ideas through hands-on work.

Tools you’ll work with

• Hevo, Estuary, Google BigQuery, dbt, Claude Code
• Python, SQL, CI/CD
• lakehouse patterns, open table formats, MCP, GCP, AWS

Compensation

• Salary range: $135,549 - $220,067 per year.
• Actual compensation within this range varies based on location, job level, experience, and skill set.
• This role may be eligible for bonuses, commissions, or other forms of compensation; ask your recruiter for details.

Benefits

• Health Insurance: Medical, Dental, and Vision for full-time employees.
• Additional Benefits: fertility, commuter, and educational assistance benefits for full-time employees.
• 401(K) Matching Plan.
• Vacation: flexible time-off for salaried employees.
• Holiday Pay: ten company paid holidays for regular, full-time employees.
• Employee Discounts: discounts on select grading services for approved submissions.
• Flexible Hours: teams may offer flexible schedules with varying shifts.
• Fun Working Environment: participation in celebrations, holiday events, and team building activities.

Location and interview expectations

• Los Angeles, CA (hybrid)
• During video interviews, candidates are requested to have cameras on.
• Certain interview steps may be conducted by phone.
• Remote candidates may be asked to participate in an on-site interview as part of final stages, at the company’s discretion.
• Candidates within a 1-hour commute distance to one of the offices will be required to be onsite most of the time.
• Hybrid or remote candidates are considered, and accommodations can be discussed as needed.

Employment and compliance notes

• Collectors uses e-Verify to validate eligibility to work legally in the United States.
• Collectors advises candidates to watch for fraudulent offers claiming to be from Collectors; if suspected, contact [email protected].
• Collectors states it never asks for personal information such as bank account details, Social Security numbers, or National IDs, and does not request payments for business equipment purchases.
• If you need an accommodation to apply or interview due to a disability or special need, email [email protected].
• New York residents: Collectors Universe, Inc. uses an automated employment decision tool (Brighthire) beginning in September 2026, and a summary of the most recent independent bias audit is available from Brighthire.
• For questions about data collected and retention policy, contact [email protected].