Lead Data Engineer

Coast; New York (NY); On-site; USD 170,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental and vision

Equity grant

Free lunch Fridays

Education stipend

401(k) plan

Parental leave

Job summary

Coast is seeking a Lead Data Engineer in New York, NY to shape a federated data platform in a fast-growing fintech environment. You will own the data warehouse, set security standards, and build catalogs to empower product teams and AI tooling.

You\'ll mentor a small team, champion data as a product, and collaborate across engineering, analytics, and product to unlock scalable data access with Python pipelines and dbt-based workflows.

Qualifications

• 7+ years hands-on experience across the data ecosystem, including ETL/ELT, data warehouses, and BI tooling.
• AI-native mindset: using AI tools daily and eager to expand.
• Experience with Redshift or Snowflake, Dagster, dbt, and medallion architecture.
• Proficiency in Python.
• Experience leading a horizontal Data Engineering team with analytics and product engineering.
• Mentorship experience for data engineers and other data-product stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Bias toward action and process-building; proactive.
• Comfortable in ambiguity; can build structure without losing momentum.
• New York City based; in-office 3–4 days per week.

Responsibilities

• Own Our Data Warehouse: set standards, patterns, security, and enable fast model-building.
• Provide High-Quality Patterns: be the expert on best data production/consumption practices.
• Be a Teacher: help product teams create data-based products and teach nontechnical users to use AI tools without SQL.
• Write Code: contribute to Python data pipelines, CI/CD for data products, and dbt tests.

Skills

Data engineering

Python

Redshift

Dagster

dbt

Medallion architecture

Leadership

Mentorship

Communication

AI tools

Tools

Redshift

Dagster

dbt

Python

Job description

What is Coast

Coast is re-imagining the trillion-dollar U.S. B2B card payments infrastructure, with a focus on the country's 500,000 commercial fleets, 40 million commercial vehicles, and many millions of commercial drivers. The incumbent technologies that cater to these customers are decades old, and businesses with fleets increasingly demand modern digital experiences and transparent financial services products. Coast's mission is to deliver this at a transformational scale, beginning with the Coast Fleet and Fuel Card built on a cutting-edge spend management platform.

About the Role

We're looking for a Lead Data Engineer who can not just get their hands dirty building pipelines and also act as a thought leader for the company. Data sits at the center of everything we do, and we need someone who not only understands how to make it available, but how to make it accessible to everyone in the company. In the age of AI, making good decisions is key, and having accurate data is a core part of our decision-making process.

You won't be starting from scratch. We already run on Redshift, Dagster, and dbt, but the biggest pieces are still yours to build: a data catalog, a semantic layer, a mature security posture, and AI-ready access to our data.

This is a chance to lead a small, high-leverage team and touch all corners of the company, not just reporting and analytics. Our data organization follows a federated model: product teams own their data products, and the data platform gives them the patterns, tools, and guardrails to do that well. Your job isn't to be the team everyone files tickets with; it's to make everyone else at Coast better at producing and using data.

What You'll Do

• Own Our Data Warehouse

  • Set standards and build patterns for ingesting data
  • Make sure data consumers can build models efficiently and quickly
  • Build new capabilities, like data catalogs and semantic layers that make data discoverable for your coworkers across the company
  • Set data security standards, including tokenization, RBAC, and row-level security

• Provide High-Quality Patterns

  • You should have opinions, we want you to be the expert on the best way to produce and consume data
  • Figure out how to make data usable, whether via reverse ETL or making it available to AI agents

• Be a Teacher

  • Help our product engineering teams evolve from treating data as exhaust to building DDD-based data products
  • Teach nontechnical users how to consume data using AI tools without needing to learn SQL
  • Evangelize new practices and patterns that present opportunities for Coast to remain innovative and nimble

• Write Code

  • Contribute to our data pipelines in Python
  • Build CI/CD pipelines for data products
  • Contribute new data tests for dbt

What Success Looks Like

In your first year, you'll be successful if you:

1. Provide a model for understanding our data warehouse costs
2. Ship a data catalog that helps all employees know where to find good data
3. Have a strategy and have made real progress on building a data security posture, including row-level security, RBAC, and tokenization
4. Have a strategy and have made real progress on making our data safely accessible to AI agents

Requirements

• 7+ years hands-on experience working across the data ecosystem, from modern ETL/ELT and orchestration to data warehouses and columnar stores, from BI tooling for less-technical business users to SQL optimization
• AI-native mindset: you're already using AI tools in your daily work and you're excited to push further
• Experience with data warehouses such as Redshift or Snowflake (we use Redshift), data pipeline tools (we use Dagster), dbt, and medallion architecture
• Proficiency in Python
• Experience leading a horizontal Data Engineering team, working with analytics and product engineering teams
• Mentorship experience, both of data engineers and members of other teams who have to touch data products
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Bias toward action and process-building; you don't wait for someone to hand you a playbook
• Comfortable in ambiguity; you can build structure where none exists without losing momentum
• New York City based; able to be in-office 3-4 days per week

Compensation and Benefits

Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our size and industry, and are one part of our total compensation package that also includes benefits and equity. Pay decisions are based on a number of factors, including scope and qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, and balancing internal equity relative to other Coast employees. We expect the majority of candidates who are offered roles at Coast to fall healthily within the range based on these factors.

Salary range : $170,000 - $220,000 annually

Equity Grant : Meaningful potential upside given Coast's early-stage trajectory

Benefits Overview :

• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• Flexible paid time off (vacation, personal well being, paid holidays)
• Tools to help manage your financial wellness, including webinars, access to an equity tax advisory service, and company-sponsored 401(k)
• Paid parental leave
• $400 accessories allowance (a keyboard, mouse, headphones, etc.)
• Education stipend
• Free lunch every Friday

Coast is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are building a diverse and inclusive environment, so we encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. We're an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, disability, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Check out the latest podcast interview on Fintech Layer Cake with Coast Founder Daniel Simon!