Senior Data Platform Engineer

Engg; Boston, San Francisco (MA, CA); On-site; USD 125,000 - 205,000; Full time

Job summary

Later is seeking a Senior Data Platform Engineer to own the data foundation that powers AI-enabled products. You will design, build, and evolve infrastructure and backend services, enabling engineers, analysts, and data scientists to work efficiently across GCP, AWS, and BigQuery.

You will shape data movement, governance, and security while treating the platform as a product for internal teams. This role emphasizes reliability, cost awareness, and scalable architecture.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in data/backend/platform engineering with production data systems at scale.
• Strong Python/SQL skills and dbt or similar transformation tooling.
• Hands-on cloud experience, preferably GCP and BigQuery, across multiple clouds.
• Experience with infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and workflow orchestration.
• Experience with batch and streaming architectures, security, access control, and governance.
• Judgment to make architectural tradeoffs and explain them to partners.
• Nice to have Kubernetes, and familiarity with migration/redesign of orchestration systems.
• Experience with ingestion tools like Fivetran and building internal platforms.

Responsibilities

• Build, own, and evolve the data platform and its services.
• Design scalable ingestion, orchestration, storage, transformation, and consumption pipelines.
• Evolve the BigQuery warehouse/lakehouse and modernize existing components.
• Create reliable batch and real-time data pipelines and dbt layers.
• Improve orchestration, ingestion strategies, and connector evaluations.
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across teams.
• Develop APIs, services, and integrations for data movement across clouds.
• Implement IaC, CI/CD, observability, and data quality controls.

Skills

Python

SQL

dbt

GCP

BigQuery

infrastructure as code

CI/CD

data governance

security

Kubernetes

Fivetran

internal platform

vector stores

Tools

BigQuery

AWS

Job description

Later is the world’s most intelligent influencer marketing company, built to give brands the confidence to create unforgettable campaigns. By combining real creator relationships, trusted intelligence, and expert guidance, Later removes fear and guesswork from one of marketing’s most visible investments. Built on a native, AI-powered platform and more than a decade of proprietary data—including billions of social interactions, impressions, and $2.4B+ in verified influencer-driven purchases—Later helps teams understand what will work before they launch. By combining trusted insight with expert guidance, Later removes guesswork from influencer marketing, enabling brands to choose the right creators, execute fully managed campaigns, and drive meaningful growth across awareness, engagement, and revenue. Trusted by leading enterprise brands including Nike, Wayfair, Unilever, and Southwest Airlines, Later bridges creativity and performance so campaigns don’t just look good—they deliver results. Learn more at later.com.

About this position

As a Senior Data Platform Engineer at Later, you'll own the foundation our data ecosystem runs on. You'll design, build, and evolve the infrastructure, backend services, and platform capabilities that move data from source to decision, and that help engineers, analysts, and data scientists do their best work. This is a data engineering role with a platform mindset. Our analytics platform runs on GCP and BigQuery, and our operational databases live in AWS. You'll shape how data moves between them, modernize what we have, and get our data ready for the AI-powered products we're building. You'll treat the platform as a product and the teams who depend on it as your customers. This role is for someone who likes building the system more than the individual report or model. It isn't a traditional ETL/ELT role focused on SQL, dashboards, and pipeline maintenance, and it isn't an ML engineering or data science role. You'll build the data foundation that makes AI work, and other teams will build on top of it.

What you'll be doing

• Build, own, and evolve the data platform.
• Design and own scalable infrastructure across ingestion, orchestration, storage, transformation, and consumption, including our BigQuery warehouse and lakehouse.
• Make architectural decisions, explain the tradeoffs, and modernize the parts that have outgrown their original design.
• Build reliable batch and real-time pipelines and dbt transformation layers.
• Evolve our orchestration (GCP-native tools plus our custom orchestrator) and shape our ingestion strategy, including how we evaluate Fivetran against custom connectors.
• Spot weaknesses in the platform and drive the fixes.
• Mentor other engineers and raise the technical bar.
• Engineer backend systems and keep them reliable.
• Build the APIs, services, and integrations that move data in and out of the platform, including secure, cost-aware data movement between GCP and AWS.
• Manage infrastructure as code and automate deployment with CI/CD.
• Build observability, data quality checks, and access controls, and optimize performance and cost.
• Create reusable tooling and standards that make the right way the easy way.

Build the foundation for AI

• Make trusted company data accessible for analytics, machine learning, and AI applications, including LLMs and AI agents.
• Invest in data quality, metadata, lineage, governance, and freshness.
• Design the platform to absorb new AI use cases without major rework, and partner with AI/ML, product, and engineering teams on what they need.

What you’ll bring

• Experience 6+ years in data engineering, backend engineering, or platform engineering, with a track record of owning production data systems at scale and improving their reliability, performance, and cost.
• Strong backend programming skills (Python or similar), solid SQL, and experience with dbt or a similar transformation framework.
• Hands-on cloud experience, ideally GCP and BigQuery, and comfort working across more than one cloud.
• Experience with infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and workflow orchestration.
• Experience with batch and streaming architectures, and a working understanding of security, access control, and data governance.
• The judgment to make architectural decisions and explain the tradeoffs to technical and non-technical partners.
• Nice to have Kubernetes, and experience migrating or redesigning orchestration systems.
• Managed ingestion tools like Fivetran.
• Experience building internal platforms or tooling that other engineers adopt.
• Data foundations for AI, such as vector stores, feature pipelines, or governed LLM access.

Our approach to compensation

We take a market-based & data-driven approach to compensation. We leverage data from trusted third-party compensation sources to help us understand the market value of a role based on function, level, geographic location, and scope. We evaluate compensation bi-annually, including performance and market-related factors. Our salaries are benchmarked against market Total Cash Compensation for the geographic location of our job posting. Compensation for some roles is structured as On Target Earnings (OTE = base + commission/variable) while for others it is structured as Salary only. The salary range listed for this role reflects the zones that applies to the location of this posting. To comply with local legislation and ensure transparency, we share salary ranges on all job postings. Skills, experience and other factors help determine the final salary we offer which may vary from the original range posted. Additionally, all permanent team members are eligible to participate in various benefits plans as part of their overall compensation package.

Salary range: For candidates located in the US: $125,000-205,000 USD For candidates located in Canada: $110,000-160,000 CAD

We're committed to building an inclusive, supportive place where you can do the best and most rewarding work of your career. If this sounds like you, even if y