Data Engineering Manager

Thumbtack; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Parental leave

Health insurance

Remote work stipend

Wellness programs

Job summary

Thumbtack's Data organization builds the foundations of our marketplace data, including event taxonomy, core entity models for requests, projects, pros, and customers, and the financial models used for reporting. You will lead a two-subteam data-engineering group, partner with Finance and Supply Acquisition, and own datasets that the rest of the company relies on.

You’ll drive reliability with dbt tests, CI, and anomaly detection.

Qualifications

• 6+ years building data or software systems in production.
• 2+ years managing engineers, or experience as a tech lead ready to step into first-line management.
• Experience owning datasets that other teams depend on, with testing, contracts, and versioning discipline.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow mid-level and senior data engineers, and develop TLs who can own a domain end-to-end.
• Set the engineering standards for a team that’s still forming, including review, testing, and how the team decides what not to build.
• Lead as a technical manager with modeling and architecture decisions, not just routing tickets.
• Partner with Finance to ensure revenue models are auditable and resilient to upstream changes.

Skills

SQL

Dimensional modeling

Event modeling

Python

Code reviews

Communication

Tools

BigQuery

dbt

Airflow

MetricFlow

Job description

• Thumbtack’s Data organization is responsible for the foundations of our marketplace data: the event taxonomy used across product surfaces, the core entity models for requests, projects, pros, and customers, and the financial models that support company reporting. Nearly every team at Thumbtack is downstream of our work
• Data Engineering is organized as domain-aligned teams, each embedded with the parts of the business it serves, working alongside a platform team that owns the systems underneath
• Data modeling at Thumbtack is a function of how well you understand the domain you’re modeling, so we put engineers close to it and hold them to a high bar on correctness, testing, and the durability of what they ship
• This team works at the intersection of financial data governance and rapid product iteration. Thumbtack’s revenue models must be auditable, reconcilable, and resilient to upstream changes
• At the same time, the teams responsible for Pro acquisition, activation, and partnerships are continually evolving the products, often affecting the same models Finance relies on
• The team has already introduced anomaly detection into its core pipelines to identify upstream definition changes before they affect revenue reporting, but the next step is to develop predictive capabilities that show how proposed product and data-model changes could affect financial results before those changes are released
• The stack includes BigQuery, dbt, Airflow, and MetricFlow. dbt testing and CI are already established, with significant opportunities to expand automation. The team also owns the governance tooling used to protect core pipelines and maintain trusted data across the company
• Thumbtack is also rebuilding the platforms that support sales, support, and trust & safety around API-first systems and agentic workflows. A separate, funded team owns the platform work; this team will be responsible for helping architect the resulting data beginning next year
• The team this role will lead is organized into two subteams: one partners closely with Finance, while the other is embedded with Supply Acquisition and Business Platforms. Several engineers will be joining at roughly the same time as you. Each subteam owns its roadmap, giving you a direct role in setting priorities and shaping how the team operates
• Deliver well-modeled, durable datasets for requests, projects, pros, and customers that the rest of the company builds on without asking who owns them
• Partner with Finance so revenue models reconcile, hold their definitions under upstream change, and are auditable
• Partner with the Supply Acquisition and Business Platforms teams on their roadmaps, and turn their priorities into yours without waiting to be handed tickets
• Raise the reliability floor on the core pipelines: dbt tests, CI, anomaly detection, and clear contracts so a definition change three hops upstream doesn’t quietly move a reported number
• Hire and grow mid-level and senior data engineers, and develop TLs who can own a domain end-to-end
• Set the engineering standards for a team that’s still forming, including review, testing, and how the team decides what not to build
• Lead as a technical manager. You’ll make and defend modeling and architecture decisions, not just route them

Benefits

• Parental leave
• Health insurance
• Community matters | Sure, our ways of connecting have changed. But we haven’t missed a beat, from virtual concerts to “TTversary” celebrations to weekly catch-ups
• Always be improving | We bring out the best in our colleagues — and our product — by pushing each beyond what we believe we’re capable of. We give honest feedback, even when it’s hard
• Wellness is a way of life | We promote balance with generous PTO and company-wide holidays — and find our centers every Wellness Wednesday with yoga featuring a Thumbtack pro
• A worthy mission | In a world where tech is often seen as eroding good jobs, we’re helping small business owners thrive. Our product makes entrepreneurship accessible to everyone
• Driven by our values | Our values are the compass by which we make all our decisions. Each one matters: Lead with why, Make it count, Own it, Choose teamwork, and Say what you mean
• Plus, amazing benefits | All the benefits you’d expect, plus a few more: generous parental and fertility benefits, $1800 for Thumbtack services per year and a $1200 remote work stipend
• Virtual-first working model coupled with quarterly in-person events and Camp Thumbtack
• 20+ company-wide holidays including two week-long shutdowns
• Libraries (collaborative workspaces) in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Toronto, and Manila
• Cell phone and WiFi reimbursements
• Subscriptions and Employee Assistance Program for mental health and well-being

Commitment to building inclusive teams and team cultureStrong collaboration and written communication. Most of this team’s leverage comes from working well with partner teams that have their own prioritiesTrack record of translating ambiguous business questions into durable models and metric definitionsDepth in SQL and dimensional and event modeling, and comfort in Python. You’ll be in code reviews, in the DAG when something breaks, and in modeling design discussions6+ years building data or software systems in production2+ years managing engineers, or experience as a tech lead ready to step into first-line managementExperience owning datasets that other teams depend on, with the testing, contracts, and versioning discipline that requires