Responsibilities
- Technical Leadership & Architecture - Design and evolve the Iceberg-based lakehouse architecture to balance scalability, cost, performance, and maintainability.
- Define and promote standards for table design, partitioning, schema evolution, optimization, and data layout.
- Lead architectural efforts spanning batch, streaming, and event-driven data processing where they deliver business value.
- Drive the design and delivery of complex, cross-team initiatives, enabling teams to move independently within established architectural guidance.
- Build vs. Buy: Evaluate and integrate technologies.
- Metadata, Governance & Open Standards - Define how datasets, pipelines, features, and models are described, related, and governed using shared metadata.
- Lead the adoption and integration of open-source metadata and catalog tools (e.g., OpenMetadata or similar ecosystems).
- Establish metadata standards that enable self-service analytics, governance, and AI readiness.
- Partner with BI and Analytics to ensure domain models are clearly documented and aligned to business language.
- Collaborate with Data Science to ensure model inputs, features, and outputs are traceable, explainable, and reusable.
- Security, Access Control & Compliance - Design and evolve security and access-control models for Apache Iceberg, including table-, column-, and row-level controls.
- Partner with Security and Platform teams to embed policy enforcement directly into data access paths.
- Drive metadata-driven authorization patterns that scale across tools and user groups.
- Ensure privacy, compliance, and regulatory requirements are incorporated into platform design.
- Balance strong security guarantees with usability to support safe self-service.
- Platform Reliability & Operations - Build and maintain automation for compaction, retention, lifecycle management, and cost controls.
- Establish observability standards that connect pipeline health, data quality, and reliability metrics.
- Provide architectural oversight during critical incidents and drive long-term 'Keep the Lights On' (KTLO) reduction.
- Recommend tooling and process improvements based on industry standards and operational experience.
- Organizational Impact & Collaboration - Align technical work with business priorities by understanding how data supports onX products and customer outcomes.
- Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to engineers, product partners, and leadership.
- Lead and participate in architecture and design reviews, setting a high bar for technical rigor.
- Foster strong cross-team collaboration across Data Engineering, Platform, Security, Analytics, and Data Science.
- Mentor senior and mid-level engineers, raising the technical bar across the team.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
- Deep industry experience (typically 12+ years) building and operating large-scale data systems.
- Deep expertise in distributed data systems and data architecture.
- Strong experience with Apache Iceberg and similar table formats (Delta Lake, Hudi).
- Proven experience designing secure and governed data platforms.
- Expertise in Python, SQL, and orchestration patterns (e.g., Airflow).
- Experience working with data ecosystems, including metadata, catalog, or governance tooling.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Permanent U.S. work authorization.
Nice to Have
- Deep experience in at least one major cloud environment (GCP, AWS, or Azure).
- Familiarity with cloud-native data services such as query engines, stream/batch processing systems, and object storage–based lakehouses.
- Comfort with infrastructure-as-code and automated platform management.
Benefits
- Competitive salaries, annual bonuses, equity, and opportunities for growth
- Comprehensive health benefits including a no-monthly-cost medical plan
- Parental leave plan of 5 or 13 weeks fully paid
- 401k matching at 100% for the first 3% you save and 50% from 3-5%
- Company-wide outdoor adventures and amazing outdoor industry perks
- Annual “Get Out, Get Active” funds to fuel your active lifestyle in and outside of the gym
- Flexible time away package that includes PTO, STO, VTO, and 7 paid holidays annually
Work Arrangement
Hybrid
Additional Information
- Position open until filled.
