Sr. Staff Data Platform Engineer - 5

WEX; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 6,000,000 - 9,500,000; Full time

Job summary

WEX is seeking a Sr. Staff Data Platform Engineer to be the architect of its core data infrastructure. This platform-as-a-product role focuses on high-performance engines, self-service frameworks, and compute/storage metadata layers.

You will lead design reviews, prototype new technologies, and mentor teams while bridging business strategy and technical execution across petabyte-scale environments.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in software engineering and distributed systems.
• 4+ years in principal or staff-level capacity leading platform-scale initiatives.
• Experience building data lakehouse platforms and APIs.

Responsibilities

• Define the 3–5 year technical roadmap for the Data Lakehouse.
• Architect platform-as-a-product abstractions and internal SDKs/tools.
• Prototype and benchmark emerging technologies for performance and cost-efficiency.
• Lead architecture reviews and resolve critical outages or bottlenecks.

Skills

Java/J2EE

Python

Distributed systems

Cloud architectures

CI/CD

Data lakehouse

Spark

Data governance

AI coding/SDLC

Education

CS degree (Bachelor’s/Master’s) with Distributed Systems focus

Tools

Apache Iceberg

Hudi

Delta Lake

Spark

dbt

Unity Catalog

DataHub Catalog

Apache Polaris

Terraform

Job description

As a Sr. Staff Data Platform Engineer, you will be the primary architect and visionary for the core data infrastructure that powers the entire enterprise. This is a \"platform-as-a-product\" role;

your mission is to build the internal foundation—creating the high-performance engines, abstraction layers, and self-service frameworks that enable hundreds of other engineers to move faster.

You will operate at the intersection of Systems Programming and Data Engineering, solving

\"hard-tech\" problems like automated schema evolution, multi-engine compute optimization, and

global data discovery. As a top-level technical individual contributor, you will bridge the gap between long-term business strategy and deep-kernel technical execution, ensuring WEX’s data platform remains a competitive advantage.

Is this role for you?

YES, if: You are a Backend/Software Engineer who loves solving \"Big Data\" problems,

building APIs for data discovery, and optimizing distributed systems.

NO, if: Your primary expertise is writing SQL queries, building Tableau dashboards, or

managing ETL workflows without deep experience in Java or Python system architecture.

Responsibilities

Architectural Sovereignty: Define the 3-5 year technical roadmap for the Data Lakehouse.

You aren't just using tools; you are deciding how storage, compute, and metadata layers (e.g.,

Apache Polaris, Unity Catalog or Datahub Catalog) interact at an elemental level.

Platform-as-a-Product: Build internal SDKs, CLI tools, and automated orchestration

frameworks. Your goal is to abstract away cloud complexity via Control Planes and Custom

Operators, allowing Data Engineers to focus on business logic rather than infrastructure

boilerplate.

Internal R&D: Prototype and benchmark emerging technologies (e.g., specialized Spark

extensions) to keep the platform at the bleeding edge of performance and cost-efficiency.

lineage, PII masking, and fine-grained access control across petabyte-scale environments

without sacrificing developer velocity.

Engineering Excellence & Influence: Set the gold standard for code quality and system design

across the company. You will lead Cross-Functional Architecture Reviews and serve as the

final escalation point for the most complex system outages or performance bottlenecks.

Organizational Mentorship: Beyond individual mentoring, you will foster an \"Engineering

Community,\" influencing the hiring bar and professional development paths for the entire

Qualifications & Experience

Experience: 15+ years in software engineering and distributed systems, with at least 4 years

in a principal or staff-level capacity leading platform-scale initiatives.

Core Technical Competencies (Software Engineering Focus):

Strong Software Foundations: Strong fundamentals on software engineering, system

architecture, and scalable production applications (Algorithms, Data Structures, and System

Design).

Experience in the Java/J2EE ecosystem (Spring Boot, Microservices) and python. We are

looking for a developer who writes clean, testable, and high-performance code, not just

scripts.

Data as a Product: Experience building the platforms / framework engines and APIs that

power data movement, rather than just building the ETL/ELT pipelines themselves.

Data Lakehouse Mastery: Deep internal knowledge of Apache Iceberg, Hudi, or Delta Lake (metadata management, manifest files, and compaction strategies).

Experience contributing to or deeply customizing open-source data projects (e.g., Spark, dbt).

Extensive experience with cloud architecture and services, including AWS (S3, EMR,

Deep understanding of CI/CD automation, modern development tools, Git Actions, Terraform

and frameworks.

AI-Driven Development & Productivity:

AI Native Development: Experience leveraging AI Code Gen platforms into software

development lifecycle (SDLC) to automate code generation, reviews, generate unit tests, and

perform root-cause analysis of system failures.

LLM-Ops for Platform: Ability to architect the infrastructure required to support AI Agent

development by enabling vector database integration.

Leadership & Vision:

Proven track record of \"leading by influence\"—driving adoption of new technologies across

multiple autonomous teams.

Ability to communicate complex architectural trade-offs (e.g., \"Latency vs. Consistency\" or

\"Build vs. Buy\") to C-suite executives and junior engineers alike.

Education:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science (Distributed Systems focus) preferred, or