Senior Staff Engineer, Data

FloQast; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 188,000 - 282,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical

Dental & Vision

Unlimited vacation

Job summary

FloQast is seeking a Senior Staff Engineer, Data to lead the design and evolution of our core data platform. You will define standards for ingestion, governance, storage, processing, and access, with Spark at the heart of the stack, empowering product, analytics, and operations teams.

You will shape data lakehouse architecture on Iceberg with S3, manage governance and security, and mentor engineers while driving cross‑functional collaboration and modernization of our data capabilities.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with data infrastructure or backend platform engineering.
• Proven track record delivering production-grade data platforms at scale.
• Strong experience with Snowflake, dbt, Kafka, Airflow, Spark, and cloud technologies (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Hands‑on experience building APIs and services for data access, metadata management, and platform observability.
• Familiarity with data privacy regulations (GDPR, SOC2, HIPAA) and enterprise‑grade security practices.
• Effective communicator and collaborator who can influence engineering and non‑engineering audiences alike.
• Experience in a startup or high‑growth SaaS environment.
• Exposure to AI/ML data pipelines or real‑time analytics platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead data platform architecture for scalable pipelines, storage, and access layers.
• Own core data platform components: event streaming, lakehouse, batch & streaming ETL, data cataloging.
• Define data governance practices for quality, lineage, privacy, access control.
• Collaborate with product, analytics, infra, and security teams to align data platform capabilities.
• Mentor engineers and set coding and architectural standards.
• Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies to improve performance and cost efficiency.

Skills

Spark

Distributed systems

Data platform design

Python/Scala

Kafka

Airflow

Cloud (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Mentoring

Tools

Snowflake

dbt

Kafka

Airflow

Spark

Iceberg

Trino/Athena

Job description

As a Senior Staff Engineer, Data, you'll be a key technical leader driving the design, implementation, and evolution of FloQast's core data platform. You will define the standards and patterns that power data ingestion, governance, storage, processing, and access across all product and analytics systems — with Apache Spark as the primary compute engine at the heart of that stack. Your work will enable teams across engineering, product, and business operations to build on a reliable, scalable, and secure data foundation.

You've spent years going deep on Spark in production. You reason through shuffle behavior, partition strategies, and memory pressure without reaching for documentation. You understand what the Catalyst optimizer does with your query plan and you write code that helps it. You've made the call between PySpark and Scala Spark on real workloads, run Structured Streaming pipelines over Kafka topics on MSK, and debugged slow stages in the Spark UI. You've built Spark jobs that read and write Apache Iceberg tables at scale — managing snapshot isolation, schema evolution, and compaction as operational concerns, not afterthoughts. At this level, you don't just tune pipelines. You set the architecture that determines whether the next order of magnitude is a rewrite or a config change.

At FloQast, you'll apply that depth across our full lakehouse stack. FloLake runs on Iceberg over S3, orchestrated through MWAA, cataloged in AWS Glue, and queried via Trino and Athena. Kafka on MSK moves data through the hot path. You'll own the compute architecture decisions that 30,000+ tenants depend on, define how Spark jobs are structured and governed across the platform, and set the bar for how the team thinks about distributed systems. Engineers at all levels will look to you as the authority on what good looks like — and you'll build the systems that prove it.

What You’ll Do

• Data Platform Architecture: Lead the design of scalable and reliable data pipelines, storage solutions, and access layers using modern cloud-native technologies.
• Foundational Systems: Own and evolve the core data platform components (e.g., event streaming, lakehouse architecture, batch & streaming ETL, data cataloging).
• Data Governance: Define best practices for data quality, lineage, privacy, and access control to ensure regulatory compliance and trust in the data.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with Product, Analytics, Infrastructure, and Security teams to align data platform capabilities with organizational goals.
• Technical Leadership: Mentor engineers across the organization, establish coding and architectural standards, and influence the strategic direction of the platform.
• Innovation & Modernization: Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies that improve performance, observability, developer experience, and cost efficiency.

What You’ll Bring

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in data infrastructure, distributed systems, or backend platform engineering.
• Proven track record of designing and delivering production-grade data platforms at scale (e.g., supporting hundreds of TBs of data, thousands of jobs/day).
• Strong experience with tools like Snowflake, dbt, Kafka, Airflow, Spark, and cloud-native technologies (e.g., AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Hands‑on experience building APIs and services for data access, metadata management, and platform observability.
• Familiarity with data privacy regulations (GDPR, SOC2, HIPAA) and enterprise‑grade security practices.
• Effective communicator and collaborator who can influence engineering and non‑engineering audiences alike.
• Experience in a startup or high‑growth SaaS environment.
• Exposure to AI/ML data pipelines or real‑time analytics platforms.

This job posting is for our Senior Staff Engineer, Data the base pay range for this position is $188,000 - $282,000. Compensation is not limited to base salary. FloQast values our Total Rewards, and offers a competitive and elaborate Benefits Package including, but not limited to, Medical, Dental, Vision, Family Forming benefits, Life & Disability Insurance, and Unlimited Vacation. FloQast reserves the right to amend, change, alter, and revise pay ranges and benefits offerings at any time. All applicants acknowledge that by applying to this position you understand that this specific pay range is contingent upon meeting the qualifications and requirements of the role, and for the successful completion of the interview selection and process. It is at the Company's discretion to determine what pay is provided to a candidate within the range associated with the role.

About FloQast

FloQast is the leading AI-powered Accounting Transformation Platform, uniquely built by former accountants for accountants. We automate complex, recurring accounting workflows—transforming preparers into strategic reviewers and relieving accountants from tedious manual work. Our cloud‑based solution is trusted by over 3,500 world‑class accounting teams, including Lululemon, Doordash, and the MLB, to drive collaboration and financial accuracy. Driven by a mission to continuously elevate the profession, FloQast is redefining both the practice and the perception of accounting on a global scale.

Our Values

• Unwaveringly Authentic
• Ambitious with Integrity
• Empowered to Grow
• Committed to Collaboration
• Customer Obsessed in All Ways

Here’s Why You Should Apply

• What is engineering working on? Our FQ Engineering Blog showcases a number of our recent efforts straight from the engineers working on them. Check it out!

FloQast is regularly rated as a Best Place to Work!

• Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021
• Best Places to Work by LA Business Journal since 2017 (that’s 9 years!)
• Built In’s Best Place to Work in Los Angeles 7 years in a row!

Because we are Customer Obsessed in All Ways, check out what our customers have to say about FloQast on G2 Crowd.

FloQast, Inc is committed to operating fair and unbiased recruitment procedures allowing all applicants an equal opportunity for employment, free from discrimination on the basis of religion, race, sex, age, sexual orientation, disability, color, ethnic or national origin, or any other classification as may be protected by applicable law. We aim to recruit the right people for the jobs we have to offer, and to assess applications on the basis of relevant skills, education, and experience. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives. We are an equal opportunity employer and strive to provide a professional and welcoming workplace for all employees.

Link to FloQast Recruiting AI Usage Policy

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.