Senior Director of Engineering, Native Data

Apollo; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 349,000 - 502,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

401(k)

Paid holidays

Parental leave

Wellbeing benefits

Global travel coverage

Medical/Dental/Vision insurance

Job summary

Apollo is seeking an engineering leader to own the core data platform, including data acquisition, enrichment, and quality signals. You’ll build and grow an engineering organization across multiple geographies to ensure fresh, accurate data across the platform.

You will align with the CTO and executives, drive architecture for large-scale enrichment and ETL, and create proactive data quality feedback loops. This role focuses on AI-native development and scaling data operations.

Qualifications

• Track record of leading high-performing engineering teams for large-scale data or distributed systems.
• Deep technical understanding of data infrastructure, ingestion and data quality.
• Ability to operate where correctness, freshness, reliability, scale and cost matter.

Responsibilities

• Own the engineering strategy and execution for Apollo's core data platform.
• Lead and grow Data teams with multiple Principal Engineers across geographies.
• Scale teams to solve data quality, freshness, and enrichment challenges.
• Build systems using signals from active users and various data sources to improve datasets.
• Own architectures for large-scale enrichment, ETL, reverse ETL, and data synchronization.
• Create feedback loops to improve data from bounced emails, stale phone numbers, and corrections.
• Join Executive Staff as a key decision-maker on Apollo's data strategy.

Skills

Leading teams

Data infrastructure

Distributed systems

Data quality

Team growth

AI fluency

Product strategy leadership

Tools

SQL databases

ETL pipelines

Python

Job description

Apollo.io is the leading go-to-market solution for revenue teams, trusted by over 500,000 companies and millions of users globally, from rapidly growing startups to some of the world's largest enterprises. Founded in 2015, the company is one of the fastest growing companies in SaaS, raising approximately $250 million to date and valued at $1.6 billion. Apollo.io provides sales and marketing teams with easy access to verified contact data for over 210 million B2B contacts and 35 million companies worldwide, along with tools to engage and convert these contacts in one unified platform. By helping revenue professionals find the most accurate contact information and automating the outreach process, Apollo turns prospects into customers. Apollo raised a series D in 2023 and is backed by top-tier investors, including Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, and more, and counts the former President and COO of Hubspot, JD Sherman, among its board members.

Your role and mission

Data is at the core of Apollo's product.

Our People and Company datasets, and the enrichment fields that make them useful, power nearly every part of the Apollo platform. We believe we already have one of the best B2B datasets in the world. Your mission is to make it the best.

You will own the engineering organization responsible for Apollo's core data platform: how we acquire data, enrich it, understand its quality and freshness, move it across systems, and continuously improve it using the signals generated by millions of Apollo users.

This is one of the highest-leverage engineering leadership roles at Apollo. You will own three critical areas: Native Data, Waterfall Enrichment, and Scraping & Extension, and grow the organization as the platform expands. It's an incredibly complex problem that involves not only identifying the right datasets and leveraging the information we get from indexing people and company data from across the internet, but also applying the logic that makes sure we always have the right information for every company and user. Also, in data, latency matters - the more fresh the data, the more valuable it is in triggering outreach. As a leader on the team, you will have to deal with significant ambiguity (e.g., what sources should we prioritize and why? How should we think about event data versus relational?) and work relentlessly to make sure our data coverage and quality are always best-in-class.

Data is the lifeblood that makes the execution and intelligence within Apollo work.

What you will do

• Own the engineering strategy and execution for Apollo's core data platform (partnering with Ray Li, Apollo's CTO and co-founder)
• Lead and grow the teams responsible for Data. Build and develop a world-class engineering team with multiple Principal Engineers across multiple geographies
• Scale the Native Data team from current headcount to the right size to solve the problems described above
• Build systems that leverage signals from Apollo's active users, data network, browser extension, web data, customer CRMs, and other sources to continuously improve our dataset
• Develop a deep understanding of the coverage, quality, confidence, and freshness of every major data vector
• Build systems for identifying when Apollo's data is stale or out of sync and determining when and how it should be refreshed. Work with Sales to understand when we win/lose customers based on our quality. Work on Vendor selection and diversification.
• Create feedback loops across the GTM platform so signals like bounced emails, stale phone numbers, and customer corrections continuously improve Apollo's underlying data
• Own the systems that ingest and distribute data across Apollo's broader platform
• Lead the architecture behind large-scale enrichment, scraping, ETL, reverse ETL, and data synchronization
• Own the monitoring, dashboards, and quality benchmarks that make data freshness and accuracy measurable at scale.
• Join Apollo’s Executive Staff as a key decision-maker and partner with the broader engineering, product, data, and cross-functional teams as a subject matter expert on the long-term strategy for Apollo's most important asset

How we work: AI-native by default

Apollo is an AI-native engineering organization.

You will set the standard for how your teams use AI and agents to move faster across design, implementation, investigation, and operations. More importantly, you will identify where AI can fundamentally change how Apollo acquires, validates, enriches, reconciles, and maintains data at scale. We are looking for leaders who see AI not simply as a productivity tool, but as a new capability for building systems that weren't previously possible.

What we are looking for

• A track record of leading high-performing engineering teams responsible for large-scale data or distributed systems
• Deep technical understanding of data infrastructure, distributed systems, databases, ingestion, synchronization, and data quality
• Experience operating systems where correctness, freshness, reliability, scale, and cost all matter
• Experience building and growing engineering teams while maintaining a high technical bar
• The ability to move comfortably between organizational leadership, product strategy, and deep technical discussions
• Strong judgment around when to build, buy, integrate, or redesign critical infrastructure
• The ability to lead through ambiguity and turn complex technical problems into clear direction for multiple teams
• A record of attracting, developing, and retaining exceptional engineers and engineering leaders
• Genuine, current fluency with AI-assisted development and a clear point of view on how AI changes both engineering and large-scale data systems

Tier 1 Pay Range (San Francisco, New York City, Seattle)

$401,900-$502,300 USD

Tier 2 Pay Range (All other US Locations)

$349,400-$436,800 USD

The listed Pay Range reflects the total cash compensation inclusive of annual base salary and annual bonus as applicable. For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonus target and annual base salary for the role. This salary range may be inclusive of several career levels at Apollo and will be narrowed during the interview process based on a number of factors, including the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and location. Applicants interested in this role who are not located in the US may request the annual salary range for their location during the interview process.

Additional benefits for this role may include: equity; company bonus or sales commissions/bonuses; 401(k) plan; at least 10 paid holidays per year, flex PTO, and parental leave; employee assistance program and wellbeing benefits; global travel coverage; life/AD&D/STD/LTD insurance; FSA/HSA and medical, dental, and vision benefits.

We are AI Native

Apollo.io is an AI-native company built on a culture of continuous improvement. We're on the front lines of driving productivity for our customers—and we expect the same mindset from our team. If you're energized by finding smarter, faster ways to get things done using AI and automation, you'll thrive here.

Why You’ll Love Working at Apollo

At Apollo, we're driven by a shared mission: to help our customers unlock their full revenue potential. That's why we take extreme ownership of our work, move with focus and urgency, and learn voraciously to stay ahead.

We invest deeply in your growth, ensuring you have the resources, support, and autonomy toown your role and make a real impact. Collaboration is at our core—we're all for one, meaning you'll have a team across departments ready to help you succeed. We encourage bold ideas and courageous action, giving you the freedom to experiment, take smart risks, and drive big wins.

If you're looking for a place where your work matters, where you can push boundaries, and where your career can thrive—Apollo is the place for you.

Learn more here!