Senior Data Engineer Software

Front Door Defense; Costa Mesa (CA); On-site; USD 166,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive health benefits

Equity grants

Comprehensive support packages

Job summary

Front Door Defense is seeking a Senior Data Engineer in Costa Mesa, California, responsible for designing and implementing scalable data pipelines for defense analytics. The role demands collaboration across teams to build a robust data platform while leading future data initiatives.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in data engineering with proficiency in Python, SQL, and Spark. Compensation ranges from $166,000 to $220,000 USD per year, with comprehensive benefits included in the package.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in a data engineering role.
• Good foundations in Python or another programming language.
• Experience with Spark, PySpark, SQL, and dbt.

Responsibilities

• Design and roadmap for our data platform.
• Build and maintain data pipelines for various data sources.
• Lead and mentor team members while being hands-on.

Skills

Python

SQL

Spark

AWS

Data visualization tools

Education

Bachelor's degree in relevant field

Tools

Palantir Foundry

SQLMesh

Apache Iceberg

Flyte

Job description

Senior Data Engineer

Design and implement scalable data pipelines and data products for defense analytics

Location: Costa Mesa, California, United States

Compensation: $166,000 - 220,000 USD / year

Job Tags: Software

About The Role

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century's most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril's family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting‑edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

About The Team

As a Data Engineer on the Analytics Team, you will be collaborating with stakeholders across the company to design, build and implement data pipelines and models that enable our next generation of technology to be deployed around the world. You will also shape the current and future vision of the entire data platform. The Analytics space is ingrained in our team's DNA, as we regularly discuss shifts in the industry and keep up with the top relevant blogs. If this culture and Anduril's mission speaks to you, you've found the right place.

About The Job

We're looking for Data Engineers who are seeking high impact collaborative roles focused on driving operational execution. Ideally you are looking to learn what it takes to build the next generation of defense technology.

What You'll Do

• Lead the design and roadmap for our data platform
• Partner with operations, product, and engineering to advocate best practices and build supporting systems and infrastructure for the various data needs
• Own the ingest and egress frameworks for data pipelines that stitch together various data sources to produce valuable data products that drive the business
• Palantir Foundry is our central hub for data‑driven applications, visualizations and large‑scale data analysis across the Anduril org. We manage a large user base and provide true data self‑service at scale
• We use SQLMesh for data transformations, giving our engineers the ability to work with SQL while enjoying software engineering best practices like version control, testing, and CI/CD for data pipelines
• For querying data, we utilize Athena, an AWS serverless solution that allows our team to run analytics directly on our data lake without managing infrastructure
• We've implemented Apache Iceberg as our table format, providing advanced data management capabilities like schema evolution and time‑travel queries
• We use Flyte for orchestration. It is a highly scalable, Kubernetes native modern orchestration platform similar to Airflow or Dagster
• Operate in a 'player‑coach' capacity, leading members of the team, while remaining hands‑on as a contributor

Required Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in a data engineering role building products, ideally in a fast‑paced environment
• You are motivated by our mission. We are working to solve the biggest problems in defense
• Good foundations in Python or another language
• Experience with Spark, PySpark, SQL and dbt
• Experience with Enterprise Data Systems like Palantir Foundry
• Experience with or interest in learning how to develop data services and data products
• Experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP security ecosystem, containerization, and associated tooling
• Knowledge of data & visualization tools, such as Tableau
• Understand the importance of engineering with security's best practices in mind
• You are empathetic: you are eager to see the world from your users' perspective
• You're energized by business impact & a self‑starter: you love to drive the direction of ambiguous projects
• Drive to take ownership of and debug complex data transformation pipelines and data models
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities

US Salary Range

$166,000 - $220,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top‑tier benefits for full‑time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you're supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.