Senior Staff Data Engineer — Semantic Layer Architect

Zendesk; Austin, Northern (TX, KY); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Zendesk is seeking a Senior Staff Data Engineer to lead the architecture and delivery of an AI-ready semantic data platform. You will define enterprise semantic architecture, establish data contracts, and drive platform evolution with Snowflake, dbt, and Looker.

The role combines data engineering, architecture, and AI partnerships to enable trusted data for analytics and applications. You will mentor engineers, shape governance, and guide cross-team initiatives from concept to production, while

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in data engineering, data architecture, or related platform disciplines.
• At least 3+ years hands-on experience in Semantic Layer implementation.
• Experience designing large-scale data, analytics, semantic, or platform systems used by multiple teams.
• Strong SQL and at least one programming language such as Python, Java, Go, or Scala.
• Excellent communication and collaboration with executives, engineers, analysts, data scientists, and business stakeholders.
• Proven ability to mentor senior engineers and influence technical decisions across teams.

Responsibilities

• Define the enterprise semantic architecture for metrics, dimensions, entities, relationships, grain, time semantics, and business context.
• Establish reusable semantic contracts so analytics, applications, and AI systems operate from consistent definitions.
• Evaluate long-term semantic platform architecture (Snowflake Semantic Views, dbt, MetricFlow, Cube).
• Design metadata-driven capabilities for semantic discovery, deterministic metric computation, and governed access.
• Lead multi-team initiatives from architecture to production adoption and continuous improvement.
• Treat the platform as an internal product, improving onboarding, adoption, and migration from duplicates.

Skills

Data engineering leadership

Semantic layer design

Distributed systems

SQL & programming

Communication & collaboration

Mentoring engineers

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s in CS/DS

Tools

Snowflake

Databricks

dbt

Looker

AWS / Kubernetes

Job description

Zendesk is seeking a Senior Staff Data Engineer to lead the architecture and delivery of an AI-ready semantic data platform. You will define enterprise semantic architecture, establish data contracts, and drive platform evolution with Snowflake, dbt, and Looker.

The role combines data engineering, architecture, and AI partnerships to enable trusted data for analytics and applications. You will mentor engineers, shape governance, and guide cross-team initiatives from concept to production, while