Senior Data Engineer

Syndesus, Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 170,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Syndesus, Inc. is reshaping the consumer finance landscape by enhancing data-powered products for financial institutions. They are looking for a Data Engineer in New York who will own and optimize the data platform, build scalable ETL processes, and democratize data access.

The ideal candidate has over 5 years of experience in data engineering, deep expertise in modern data warehouses, and advanced SQL skills. Compensation ranges from $170K to $190K plus equity, with relocation options available.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in data engineering or analytics engineering.
• Deep expertise with modern data warehouses, including performance tuning.
• Production experience with dbt or comparable transformation tools.

Responsibilities

• Own and optimize the entire data platform.
• Build self-healing data pipelines.
• Democratize data access for PMs and analysts.

Skills

Data engineering

Analytics engineering

Modern data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift)

Advanced SQL skills

ETL/ELT pipeline management

Data quality frameworks

Tools

dbt

Orchestration tools

Job description

About the Role

Our client is reshaping the consumer finance landscape by bringing a more human approach to the industry. Their data-powered products help financial institutions modernize their collections operations, giving borrowers clear, compassionate paths back to financial stability and control. Beyond expanding access to credit, the company is focused on restoring dignity and offering millions of people a genuine opportunity to achieve financial freedom.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and optimize the entire data platform — evolving the Snowflake warehouse from analyst-maintained to engineer-optimized while standardizing data models for client reporting, operational dashboards, and ML features.
• Build self-healing data pipelines — designing ETL processes that scale automatically with volume, implementing monitoring that surfaces issues before anyone notices, and tuning cost without compromising performance.
• Democratize data access — designing intuitive models that empower PMs, analysts, and ops teams to find answers on their own, all while upholding security and compliance standards.
• Bridge engineering and analytics — creating feedback loops between production systems and analytical needs, making sure schema changes don't disrupt downstream dependencies, and influencing how new features generate data.
• Institute modern data practices — rolling out testing frameworks, building CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure changes, and producing documentation that allows others to extend your work.
• Drive strategic infrastructure decisions — pinpointing where new tools unlock capabilities, balancing quick wins against long-term architectural vision, and laying the groundwork for an eventual data engineering team.

Priority Projects

• Data Model Redesign: Architect unified models that cut query redundancy for client reporting by 50% while preserving flexibility.
• Pipeline Reliability: Reinforce monitoring systems to catch 99% of issues before they reach users.
• Cost Optimization: Reduce Snowflake spend by 30–40% through smart clustering and lifecycle management.
• Analytics Enablement: Build semantic layers that let both technical and non-technical users easily draw value from rich user data.

Requirements

• 5+ years in data engineering or analytics engineering with steadily growing technical scope (data or analytics engineering should be the primary discipline in your most recent role).
• Deep expertise with modern data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, or Redshift), including performance tuning and cost optimization.
• Advanced SQL skills — you can write clean, elegant queries and figure out why that 45-minute monster is burning through the compute budget.
• Production experience with dbt or comparable transformation tools, including testing and documentation best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines at scale using modern orchestration tools.
• Experience as a sole or lead data engineer, owning infrastructure end-to-end without a large team behind you.
• Experience implementing data quality frameworks and proactive monitoring systems.

Bonus Skills

• Experience with streaming architectures and real-time analytics.
• Familiarity with ML infrastructure and feature stores.
• Knowledge of financial data privacy regulations and compliance.
• Previous startup or high-growth company experience.
• A track record of partnering with engineering teams to improve data quality at the source.
• A systems thinker who looks past individual pipelines to understand how data flows across the organization.
• Ownership mentality — you set your own roadmap and move initiatives forward without waiting for permission.
• Strategic perspective that ties technical decisions back to business outcomes.
• Collaborative working style with analysts, engineers, and product managers.
• Clear communicator who writes documentation people actually read.
• Bias toward shipping iteratively rather than chasing perfection.

Logistics

Location: New York

Compensation: $170K – $190K + Equity

Openings: 1

Benefits / Other

Open to relocation for strong non-NYC candidates (relocation required within 60 days); visa transfers considered by default (new visa sponsorships handled case by case).