Sr. Data Engineer - Loyalty & Customer Analytics

El Pollo Loco is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to take ownership of loyalty and customer spend data and turn it into reliable, actionable insight for leadership. In this hybrid role based in Costa Mesa, you will lead data-domain work end to end, collaborating across Marketing, Finance, Operations, internal technology teams, and external vendors to improve data integrity and the architecture behind key decisions.

This is a strategic position focused on building and modernizing the pipelines, models, and governance mechanisms that support analytics across EPL, including integrations with third-party platforms that deliver loyalty, POS, digital ordering, and marketing data.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with Marketing, Finance, Operations, and leadership to understand business questions, translate them into data requirements, and recommend solution approaches without needing detailed direction.
• Own solutions from concept to production, evaluating options, making architectural trade-off decisions, and delivering working outcomes with minimal supervision.
• Design, build, and maintain data pipelines, ingestion flows, and analytical models for loyalty, customer, and transaction data.
• Define and own the data architecture for the domain, ensuring alignment with business needs, security, scalability, and cost effectiveness.
• Collaborate with external technology vendors and data providers to define integrations, resolve data issues, and maintain accountability for data quality and delivery.
• Establish data contracts with internal and external sources, integrate new data sources, and develop reusable transformation patterns.
• Identify limitations in existing data processes, drive improvements, and establish best practices including automated monitoring, alerting, and self-healing processing.
• Apply AI/ML technologies to expand analytics capabilities and automate insight generation, including large language models and agentic frameworks.
• Modernize ingestion frameworks and build secure, scalable, and maintainable solutions that support EPL’s growth.

Requirements

• 8+ years of progressive experience in data engineering, data architecture, or analytics engineering, including ownership of production data platforms.
• Expert-level SQL and strong experience with modern ETL/ELT practices and data processing.
• Hands-on experience with cloud data warehouse platforms (for example, Snowflake or comparable).
• Experience with data governance and data modeling to ensure data integrity across analytics and reporting.
• Ability to take an ambiguous business problem and independently design, build, and deliver a solution.
• Experience managing integrations and working relationships with third-party technology vendors.
• Experience with LLMs and agentic frameworks, with the ability to integrate AI into analytics workflows.
• Experience with loyalty, customer, or transactional data in restaurant, retail, or consumer businesses is strongly preferred.
• Technical leadership mindset with long-term architectural vision and high-quality delivery.
• Comfort operating with ambiguity and setting direction where none exists.
• Strong judgment in balancing short-term needs against long-term business goals.
• Clear communication with executives and non-technical stakeholders in business terms.
• Sense of urgency and strong attention to detail in a fast-paced environment.

Technologies

• SQL
• ETL
• ELT
• Snowflake
• Large language models
• Agentic frameworks
• AI/ML

Benefits

• Medical + Dental + Vision Insurance + HSA Savings Account
• 401(K) Retirement Plan with company match and immediate vesting
• Paid Vacation + Sick Pay + 12 Paid Holidays
• Employee Assistance Program
• Free El Pollo Loco food + restaurant discounts
• PerkSpot discounts program

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field (preferred).

Compensation: USD 130,000 - 143,000 per year.

Location: Costa Mesa, CA (hybrid).

Position Purpose and Impact: This role owns El Pollo Loco’s loyalty and customer spend data and builds the data solutions leadership relies on. You will start with the business problem, independently design and deliver the data solution, and ensure data integrity from source ingestion and architecture through reporting and analysis.