Lead Data Engineer - Identity

Kargo; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Kargo is seeking a senior Data Engineer to own and scale our identity graph and data pipelines in a fast‑moving AdTech environment. You will lead the design, build and rollout of a multi‑source identity graph, while collaborating with Data Partnerships and Product to turn ambiguity into a sequenced roadmap.

In this role you will standardize onboarding across web, CTV and mobile identifiers, raise observability, and mentor a growing team of data engineers.

Qualifications

• Designed and owned large-scale data systems, including at least one built from scratch, and translated ambiguity into a sequenced roadmap with Product and Data Partnerships.
• Led engineers, setting direction, reviewing work, developing people, while staying hands-on.
• Mastery of Python, Airflow and Spark, and write transformations that are idiomatic, testable and cost/performance‑aware; SQL for Snowflake with the same discipline.
• You’re at home in AWS and Kubernetes, can read infra logs to diagnose failures and slowness, and have worked with third‑party APIs in ingestion pipelines.
• You’re fluent with AI tooling in your own work, and you think about what makes a codebase legible to it.

Responsibilities

• Build a new identity graph. Take stock of what we have today, set its direction, and sequence the rollout: identifier sync, translation, clustering (with Data Science), opt-out handling.
• Standardize partner and client onboarding across web, CTV and mobile identifiers, including cleanroom onboarding, so each new feed costs less to stand up than the last.
• Ready the identity audience data layer for self-serve: creation, activation, state, and the reporting clients will discover audiences through.
• Own and raise the bar on the domain's observability and alert response. Inventory today's signals, monitors and alerts, centralize them, and bring each to standard: a freshness and quality commitment, context for AI-assisted triage, and a runbook.
• Lead and grow the domain's data engineers. Define the standards for testability, cost efficiency and the patterns worth repeating, then raise the team to them through your own code, reviews, and knowledge-sharing, recording decisions in ADRs.

Skills

Python

Airflow

Spark

SQL

Snowflake

AWS

Kubernetes

AI tooling

APIs

Tools

Snowflake

VictoriaMetrics

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

Who We Are

Kargo creates powerful moments of connection between brands and consumers to build businesses. Every day, our 600+ employees work to radically raise the bar on what agentic AI, CTV, eCommerce, social, and mobile can do to deliver unique ad experiences across the world's most premium platforms. Taking a creative science approach to all we do, we continuously innovate solutions that outperform industry benchmarks and client expectations. Now 20+ years strong, Kargo has offices in NYC, Chicago, LA, Dallas, Sydney, Auckland, London and Waterford, Ireland.

Who We Are

Kargo creates powerful moments of connection between brands and consumers to build businesses. Every day, our 600+ employees work to radically raise the bar on what agentic AI, CTV, eCommerce, social, and mobile can do to deliver unique ad experiences across the world's most premium platforms. Taking a creative science approach to all we do, we continuously innovate solutions that outperform industry benchmarks and client expectations. Now 20+ years strong, Kargo has offices in NYC, Chicago, LA, Dallas, Sydney, Auckland, London and Waterford, Ireland.

Who We Hire

Techies who want to build the future. Creatives who want to design it better. Communicators to win business. Collaborators to build it. Data pros who turn numbers into insights. Product builders who turn ideas into innovations. Anyone eager to be on a team that doesn't stop to ask what's next, because they're already building it.

The Opportunity

Identity is central to how AdTech works today: advertisers want cross-surface reach, user-level measurement, and lower-funnel attribution. Their data reaches us two ways, and each has a clear next step: direct onboarding currently runs on a partner’s identity spine and we want to build a new, multi-source graph of our own; DMP feeds are proven and now need to scale as we enter in-app inventory.

The Daily To-Do

• Build a new identity graph. Take stock of what we have today, set its direction, and sequence the rollout: identifier sync, translation, clustering (with Data Science), opt-out handling.
• Standardize partner and client onboarding across web, CTV and mobile identifiers, including cleanroom onboarding, so each new feed costs less to stand up than the last.
• Ready the identity audience data layer for self-serve: creation, activation, state, and the reporting clients will discover audiences through.
• Own and raise the bar on the domain's observability and alert response. Inventory today's signals, monitors and alerts, centralize them, and bring each to standard: a freshness and quality commitment, context for AI-assisted triage, and a runbook.
• Lead and grow the domain's data engineers. Define the standards for testability, cost efficiency and the patterns worth repeating, then raise the team to them through your own code, reviews, and knowledge-sharing, recording decisions in ADRs.

Qualifications

• You’ve designed and owned large-scale, interdependent data systems, including at least one you built from scratch, and you turn ambiguity into a sequenced roadmap with Product and Data Partnerships.
• You’ve led engineers, setting direction, reviewing work, developing people, while staying hands-on.
• You have mastery of Python, Airflow and Spark, and write transformations that are idiomatic, testable and tuned for cost and performance; you write SQL for Snowflake with the same discipline.
• You’re at home in AWS and Kubernetes, can read infrastructure logs to diagnose failures and slowness, and have worked with third-party APIs inside ingestion pipelines.
• You’re fluent with AI tooling in your own work, and you think about what makes a codebase legible to it.

Strongly Preferred

• Identity resolution or graph work in AdTech: matching, device and household graphs.
• Privacy and consent obligations: opt-outs, deletion, GDPR and CCPA.
• Data cleanrooms for partner or client onboarding.
• CI/CD with GitHub Actions/ArgoCD; monitoring with VictoriaMetrics/Prometheus/Grafana.

Nice To Have

• Iceberg or a comparable table format at production scale.
• Streaming or near-real-time processing (Kafka, Redpanda or similar).
• Low-latency stores such as Aerospike
• Experience with OLAP databases like Clickhouse.

Our Laurels

• AdAge Best Places to Work
• ThinkLA Partner of the Year
• Built In Best Places to Work
• Cynopsis 2025 Top Women in Media - Jeannine Shao Collins
• Martech Breakthrough Awards - Best Overall Adtech Company
• Digiday Media Awards Best Event
• Cynopsis Media Impact Awards-Best CTV Platform
• Martech Breakthrough Awards-CTV Innovation
• Adweek Media Plan of the Year Awards - Best Use of Insights

Follow Our Lead

• Big Picture: kargo.com
• The Latest: Instagram (@kargo.hq) and LinkedIn (Kargo)

Kargo is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse workplace where all employees and applicants are treated with respect and dignity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital or family status, national origin, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local, state, or federal law. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment.

Pursuant to applicable fair chance laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Kargo will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment.