Senior Data Engineer - Data Platform & Engineering

carsales; City of Melbourne; Hybrid; AUD 140,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

carsales, based in Melbourne, is hiring a Senior Data Engineer for Data Platform Engineering. You will own a significant segment of the data platform and serve as a technical anchor for the team, shaping architecture and translation of business needs into data solutions.

You'll optimize Snowflake, design dbt Cloud models, and mentor colleagues while collaborating with product and analytics stakeholders to deliver high-quality data capabilities with strong governance and privacy considerations.

Qualifications

• Strong SQL and Snowflake capabilities, incl. clustering, pruning, and warehouse sizing.
• dbt Cloud model architecture, testing standards, and incremental strategies.
• Experience with event-driven messaging (RabbitMQ) and production Postgres pipelines.
• Familiarity with .NET/C# is a plus for maintaining existing pipelines.
• Knowledge of data governance, privacy, and security practices from design to deployment.
• A mindset for using AI coding assistants responsibly in pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Own reliability, quality, and evolution of a large portion of the data platform.
• Lead performance tuning and cost optimization in Snowflake environments.
• Design dbt Cloud models and enforce testing standards; guide incremental strategies.
• Architect scalable data pipelines with robust error handling and observability.
• Translate business requirements into concrete data engineering solutions for stakeholders.
• Mentor and upskill the team, review code, and share knowledge.

Skills

SQL

Data governance

Communication

Collaboration

AI tooling awareness

C#

Tools

Snowflake

dbt Cloud

RabbitMQ

Postgres

Job description

• Full-time
• Employment Status: Full Time

Company Description

Are you ready to be a big part of something big?

At carsales, we’re all about making buying and selling a great experience. Since 1997, we’ve been evolving with the new economy to help people choose how they mov - today and tomorrow.

When it comes to your career, we want to offer meaningful opportunities that empower you to make a lasting impact. But for that to happen, we strive to feel small - small enough to stay agile, learn across teams, and connect authentically with each other.

With a vision to be the global leader in online vehicle marketplaces, we’re transforming how people buy and sell across the world. We discover new ideas and bring them to life. We continue to grow, and we continue to evolve - and we’re not afraid to take bold steps to get there.

Our Data Team has embarked on an exciting phase of transformation anchored to our vision of turning carsales’ data into compounding advantage - for every buyer, seller, dealer and team and in this unique role you will collaborate closely with ourProduct & Technology Teams in deliveryof our collaboratively built strategy and roadmaps, to help understand customer lifecycle, drive engagement and execute on new productswith customer experience always top of mind.

A career inDataat carsales means being at the heart of decision-making, powering the insights behind every product, feature, and experience we deliver to millions of users. The team builds scalable data platforms, maintains trusted and high-quality data pipelines, and enables advanced analytics - empowering teams across the business to make smarter, faster, and more customer-centric decisions.The data team is the engine behind carsales' shift from running the marketplace to being the intelligence behind it.

We embrace hybrid working - combining the flexibility of remote work with the energy and connection of in-person collaboration. We champion flexibility and offer a range of policies and leave options to support your wellbeing.

What’s on offer

• Recognition as one of Australia’s Best Workplaces™ by Great Place to Work®, a Family Friendly Workplace, a WORK180 endorsed employer.
• A highly engaged, collaborative team where you’ll learn from exceptional talent.
• 24 weeks paid parental leave for primary caregivers, four weeks for secondary caregivers, and six weeks paid gender-affirming care leave.
• Regular hackathons, continuous learning opportunities, and wellbeing initiatives that support your mental, emotional, and physical health.

Job Description

What you’ll be doing

As a Senior Data Engineer for Data Platform Engineering, you'll own a significant domain of our data platform and be a technical anchor for the wider team.

• Own the reliability, quality, and evolution of a significant portion of our data platform, built on Snowflake, dbt Cloud, RabbitMQ, Postgres, and GitHub Actions.
• Lead performance tuning and cost optimisation across our Snowflake environment -query profiling, micro-partition analysis, clustering strategy, and warehouse configuration.
• Design model architecture in dbt Cloud, enforce testing standards, and guide the team on incremental strategy and modelling best practice.
• Architect scalable, fault-tolerant data pipelines and define standards for error handling, observability, and pipeline design.
• Act as a technical representative for DPE with product, commercial, and analytics stakeholders, translating business requirements into data engineering solutions.
• Own significant platform domains and act as the escalation point for incidents within them -driving root cause analysis and systemic reliability improvements.
• Actively develop the capability of the wider team through mentoring, code review, and knowledge sharing, particularly in high-risk or concentrated-expertise areas.
• Evaluate and recommend AI tooling for the team, with a focus on responsible use, reliability, and auditability of AI-augmented pipelines.

Qualifications

What we’re looking for

• Deep expertise in SQL and Snowflake -clustering, pruning, warehouse sizing, result caching, Snowpipe, Streams, and Tasks.
• Expert-level dbt Cloud experience -model architecture, testing standards, incremental strategies, and (ideally) exposure to MetricFlow or semantic layers.
• Proven experience with event-driven and messaging architecture (RabbitMQ or equivalent) -exchange types, routing, dead-letter queues, and consumer/producer design.
• Solid Postgres experience in a production pipeline context -indexing, query optimisation, MVCC, and troubleshooting replication or performance issues.
• Working proficiency in .NET / C# is a plus -comfortable reading, triaging, and maintaining existing pipeline code without needing to be a full-time.NET developer.
• Strong grasp of data governance, privacy, and security practices, and a track record of building governance into pipelines from the start.
• Comfortable using AI coding assistants across the full development lifecycle, with a critical eye on output quality, data privacy, and cost.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, aligned with our values: (customer-obsessed, curious, connected).

We know not everyone will meet every requirement, and that’s okay. If you’re excited about the role and believe you can make a difference, we’d love to hear from you.

Additional Information

A few other things we want you to know...

• As an equal opportunity employer, carsales welcomes applications from individuals of all backgrounds, identities, abilities, and life experiences. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and supported.
• If you have a disability or require adjustments to participate fully in the recruitment process, please let us know - we’re here to support you.
• We understand the importance of work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements, including part-time options. If you’d like to explore this, just ask during the process.
• We’re also a proud Circle Back Initiative employer, which means we commit to responding to every applicant.
• Successful candidates joining the carsales team will need to complete a National Police Record check and must have full-time Australian working rights.