Data Platform Engineer

greystar; United States; Remote; USD 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) with company match

Paid parental leave

Sabbatical after 10 years

Flexible work arrangements

Job summary

Greystar seeks a Databricks Platform Engineer to lead administration of Databricks workspace, Unity Catalog governance, and Azure infrastructure across the enterprise data stack. This senior, platform-focused role emphasizes reliability, cost controls, and platform standards within a Databricks-native medallion architecture on Azure.

You will own CI/CD pipelines for data workflows, manage IAM and secret governance, optimize Spark performance, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to

Qualifications

• 5+ years of platform/infra/data ops experience in production.
• Expert Databricks administration with Unity Catalog.
• Deep knowledge of Azure data services and cost governance.
• IAM with Azure AD, RBAC, Unity Catalog governance.
• ADF design and orchestration at scale.
• Spark performance tuning and cost optimization.
• CI/CD with GitHub Enterprise for data pipelines.
• Automation using Python and/or SQL.
• Knowledge of medallion/lakehouse patterns.
• IaC with Terraform for Databricks and Azure resources.
• Azure DevOps pipelines and YAML workflow.
• Networking, private endpoints, and DNS resolution.
• Azure Monitor, Log Analytics for observability.
• Delta Lake lifecycle management and VACUUM/OPTIMIZE

Responsibilities

• Own Databricks workspace administration, upgrades, and policies.
• Administer Unity Catalog access controls and provenance.
• Tune Spark jobs for performance, cost, and reliability.
• Enforce DMP platform standards and medallion contracts.
• Leverage AI features like Mosaic AI for dataops capabilities.
• Operate full Azure data services stack and monitor spend.
• Provide platform support across multiple systems and platforms.
• Own CI/CD for DMP data workflows from dev to prod.
• Manage IAM, secret rotation, and governance documentation.
• Maintain IaC scripts for reproducible environments.

Skills

Databricks admin

Unity Catalog

Azure data services

Azure AD RBAC

ADF orchestration

Spark tuning

GitHub CI/CD

Python/SQL

Delta Lake

IaC / Terraform

Azure DevOps

Networking

Log Analytics

Delta Lake lifecycle

Tools

Databricks

Azure

GitHub Enterprise

Job description

ABOUT GREYSTAR

Greystar is a leading, fully integrated global real estate platform offering expertise in property management, investment management, development, and construction services in institutional-quality rental housing. Headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, Greystar manages and operates over $350 billion of real estate in more than 260 markets globally with offices throughout North America, Europe, South America, and the Asia-Pacific region. Greystar is the largest operator of apartments in the United States, managing over one million units/beds globally. Across its platforms, Greystar has nearly $79 billion of assets under management, including over $34 billion of development assets and over $36.5 billion of regulatory assets under management. Greystar was founded by Bob Faith in 1993 to become a provider of world-class service in the rental residential real estate business. To learn more, visit www.greystar.com.

JOB DESCRIPTION SUMMARY

Greystar is seeking a Platform Engineer to join the Data team. This is a senior, deeply technical platform operations role responsible for the reliability, governance, and cost efficiency of Greystar’s enterprise data infrastructure — a Databricks-native medallion architecture (Bronze → Silver → Gold) running entirely on Microsoft Azure. You will work within the DataOps pod under the Analytics Engineering umbrella, owning Databricks workspace administration, Unity Catalog governance, Azure infrastructure operations, and multi-system platform support.

This role is platform-engineering-heavy. Most of your day lives inside Databricks workspace administration and the full Azure data services stack: ADLS Gen2, Azure Data Factory, Azure Monitor, Key Vault, Log Analytics, and beyond. You will enforce platform standards, govern identity and access, optimize compute and storage spend, and provide platform support for EDP, DALDW, ADF, Synapse, Cosmos DB, and SQL Server. Deep mastery of Databricks administration and the Azure platform is a baseline expectation.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Databricks Platform Engineering & Administration

• Own Databricks workspace administration: upgrades, cluster policies, compute configurations, and Delta table lifecycle management
• Administer Unity Catalog: access controls, service principal (SP), group, and user provisioning, governance policies, and data lineage
• Tune Spark jobs for performance, reliability, and cost — profiling bottlenecks, optimizing partitioning, managing Z-ordering, and controlling compute spend
• Architect and enforce DMP platform standards: naming conventions, schema evolution policies, SLA tiers, and medallion layer contracts
• Leverage Databricks Mosaic AI and Genie to build AI-native DataOps capabilities including intelligent pipeline monitoring and anomaly detection

Azure Infrastructure & Integration

• Operate the full Azure data services stack: ADLS Gen2, Azure Data Factory (ADF), Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Key Vault, and Event Hub
• Collaborate with Azure infrastructure and cloud engineering teams on networking, identity, security, and resource provisioning
• Drive cost governance through Azure Cost Management, Databricks DBU optimization, and storage lifecycle policies

Multi-Platform Support

• Provide platform support for various systems and platforms including access management, storage optimization, and compliance
• Support additional platforms including ADF, Synapse Analytics, Cosmos DB, and Azure SQL Server
• Manage storage allocation, cluster optimization, and resource provisioning across all supported platforms
• Support compliance, audit readiness, and Key Vault secret rotation and management

CI/CD & Environment Deployments

• Own the full deployment pipeline for DMP data workflows — promoting changes from development through staging to production
• Build and maintain CI/CD workflows using GitHub Enterprise: branch strategies, PR automation, environment-specific configuration management, and release gating
• Enforce deployment standards: automated testing gates, rollback procedures, change documentation, and environment parity controls
• Use Linear for sprint planning, release tracking, and issue management across deployment cycles

Identity, Access & Governance

• Manage Azure Active Directory (AAD) service principals, RBAC assignments, and Unity Catalog permission policies
• Partner with the Data Governance team to enforce data contracts, ownership standards, and quality SLAs within Unity Catalog
• Maintain data lineage, metadata management, and governance framework documentation
• Ensure platform configurations meet security, compliance, and audit requirements

Environment Parity & Dev/Staging/Prod Management

• Own workspace configuration parity across Dev, Staging, and Production Databricks environments — cluster policies, Unity Catalog hierarchy, access controls, and compute configurations
• Define and enforce environment promotion hygiene: configuration drift detection, environment-specific secret management, and pre-production validation gates
• Maintain infrastructure-as-code (IaC) scripts and configuration templates to ensure reproducible, auditable environment provisioning across all tiers

Documentation & Collaboration

• Produce thorough technical documentation: runbooks, deployment playbooks, incident post-mortems, ADRs, and platform specs
• Partner with analytics engineers, data governance, and product stakeholders on platform design and capacity planning
• Participate in on-call rotation and support SLA commitments for business-critical DMP data domains

AI-Driven Platform Observability & Self-Healing Infrastructure

• Build and maintain AI-powered platform observability infrastructure — using LLMs and ML models to detect pipeline drift, classify anomalies, predict SLA risk, and generate automated incident summaries at the platform layer
• Architect and deploy self-healing pipeline capabilities — automated retry logic, circuit breakers, and remediation triggers — as production-grade platform features, not experiments
• Integrate Databricks Mosaic AI and Genie into operational platform workflows for intelligent cluster management, anomaly detection, and natural language platform diagnostics
• Contribute to Greystar’s 18-month agentic AI roadmap, leading near-term delivery of platform-level self-healing and proactive alerting capabilities

Data Pipeline Architecture & Platform Standards

• Own DMP pipeline architecture patterns from an infrastructure standpoint — Delta Live Tables (DLT) design standards, schema evolution enforcement, and medallion layer contracts
• Define and enforce platform-wide naming conventions, partitioning strategies, Z-ordering policies, and Delta table optimization schedules (VACUUM, OPTIMIZE)
• Partner with analytics engineers to ensure pipeline designs conform to platform infrastructure standards, SLA tiers, and compute budget constraints

Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

• Design and maintain DR strategies for the DMP platform — including Delta table backup policies, ADLS Gen2 geo-redundancy configuration, and Databricks workspace recovery runbooks
• Define RTO and RPO targets for business-critical DMP data domains; test and validate recovery procedures on a recurring basis
• Maintain business continuity plans aligned with Azure region failover capabilities and Greystar’s enterprise SLA commitments

Qualifications

• 5+ years of platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, or data operations experience in a production environment
• Expert-level Databricks administration: Unity Catalog, cluster policies, workspace management, compute configuration, and Delta Lake internals
• Strong command of the Azure data services ecosystem: ADLS Gen2, ADF, Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Key Vault, Cost Management, and Event Hub
• Identity and access management: Azure Active Directory, service principals, RBAC, and Unity Catalog governance policies
• Hands-on experience with ADF pipeline design and orchestration at scale
• Spark performance tuning: partitioning, Z-ordering, compute spend optimization, and bottleneck profiling
• Proven CI/CD experience using GitHub Enterprise: environment promotion, rollback, and release management for data pipelines
• Python and/or SQL for automation scripts, compliance validation, and platform tooling
• Knowledge of medallion / lakehouse architecture patterns and multi-environment deployment discipline
• Terraform / Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC): provisioning and managing Databricks workspaces, Azure resources, Unity Catalog configurations, and environment-specific infrastructure through version-controlled IaC
• Azure DevOps Pipelines: build and release pipeline configuration, YAML pipeline authoring, and integration with GitHub Enterprise for end-to-end deployment automation
• Azure networking: VNet configuration, private endpoints for Databricks and ADLS Gen2, NSG rules, firewall policies, and DNS resolution for secure data platform connectivity
• Azure Monitor & Log Analytics: KQL query authoring, alert rule configuration, diagnostic settings, workbook creation, and cluster event monitoring for proactive platform health management
• Delta Lake internals: VACUUM, OPTIMIZE, ZORDER, time travel, table statistics, and transaction log management for production-grade Delta table lifecycle governance

Preferred

• Experience with Synapse Analytics, Cosmos DB, or Azure SQL Server in production data environments
• Familiarity with Databricks Mosaic AI, Genie, or AI-native platform observability capabilities
• Background in data lineage tooling, metadata management, and Unity Catalog governance frameworks
• Experience with ERP system integrations: Yardi, Entrata, or RealPage in multi-tenant environments
• Background in legacy BI migration or platform modernization programs
• Linear for engineering sprint and release management

Shared Role Expectations

• Participate in on-call rotation coverage across assigned shift window
• Manage ServiceNow / Asana ticket queues per team SLA commitments
• Track and close Linear / DevOps work items as part of sprint cycles
• Contribute to team knowledge base, runbook library, and post-incident documentation

What We Offer

A high-impact role at the center of Greystar’s enterprise data transformation with access to cutting-edge tooling — Databricks, the full Azure stack, GitHub Enterprise, and an active AI innovation agenda. Competitive compensation, comprehensive benefits, flexible work arrangements, and a collaborative engineering culture focused on craft, automation, and continuous improvement.

The salary range for this position is $125,000 - $150,000 USD Annually.

Additional Compensation

Many factors go into determining employee pay within the posted range including business requirements, prior experience, current skills and geographical location.

• Corporate Positions:Inaddition to the base salary, this role may be eligible to participateina quarterly or annual bonus program based onindividual and company performance.
• Onsite Property Positions:Inaddition to the base salary, this role may be eligible to participatein weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly bonus programs.

Robust Benefits Offered

• Competitive Medical, Dental, Vision, and Disability & Lifeinsurance benefits. Low (free basic) employee Medical costs for employee-only coverage; costs discounted after 3 and 5 years of service.
• Generous Paid Time off. All new hires start with 15 days of vacation, 4 personal days, 10 sick days, and 11 paid holidays. Plus your birthday off after 1 year of service! Additional vacation accrued with tenure.
• For onsite team members, onsite housing discount at Greystar-managed communities are available subject to discount and unit availability.
• 6-Week Paid Sabbatical after 10 years of service (and every 5 years thereafter).
• 401(k) with Company Match up to 6% of pay after 6 months of service.
• Paid Parental Leave and lifetime Fertility Benefit reimbursement up to $10,000 (includes adoption or surrogacy).
• Employee Assistance Program.
• Critical Illness, Accident, HospitalIndemnity, PetInsurance and Legal Plans.
• Charitable giving program and benefits.

*Benefits offered for full-time employees. For Union and Prevailing Wage roles, compensation and benefits may vary from the listedinformation above due to Collective Bargaining Agreements and/or local governing authority.

Greystar will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Greystar is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

This position may be performed remotely anywhere within the United States except the state of Alaska.

Important Notice

Greystar will never request your banking details or other sensitive personal information during the interview process. Greystar does not conduct any interviews via text or messaging, and all communication will come from official Greystar email addresses (@greystar.com). If you receive suspicious requests, please report them immediately to [e-mail].

ANTICIPATED CLOSING DATE

October 23, 2026

This date may be subject to change due to evolving business needs.