Senior Staff Systems Engineer

Fivetran, Inc.; Oakland (CA); Hybrid; USD 232,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance (100% employer-paid)

Paid time off and holidays

Professional development and training

Team events and virtual happy hours

Monthly cell phone stipend

Mental health support resources

Job summary

Fivetran is hiring a Senior Staff Software Engineer in Oakland, CA. You will lead the engineering behind our internal AI-powered app ecosystem, architecting reusable libraries and governance for AI-enabled webapps.

This full-time hybrid role partners with stakeholders to productionalize apps, improve security and reliability, and guide engineering leadership on AI usage across the SDLC.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software industry experience
• Experience designing reusable libraries and experimentation platforms
• Experience with distributed systems and cloud security concepts
• Ability to write well-structured, performant code
• Ability to lead software and infrastructure design
• Experience in code reviews, troubleshooting and testing
• Proficient in Java, C++, or C#
• Hands-on cloud and container experience (Docker, K8s)
• CI tools like BuildKite
• Observability tools a plus (New Relic, Grafana)
• Experience with AI code assistants and AI-enabled development

Responsibilities

• Independently design and implement features to create scalable distributed data pipelines on the cloud
• Develop, maintain, and test code
• Conduct design and code reviews
• Collaborate with product managers, customers, and engineers to deliver high-quality, scalable products
• Address performance and scalability challenges
• Participate in on-call rotation
• Participate in hiring processes
• Make Fivetran the most reliable and secure data infrastructure component

Skills

Distributed systems

Software architecture

Leadership

Code reviews

AI-assisted development

Tools

Python

TypeScript/React

BigQuery

Claude API

Agent SDK

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Azure

BuildKite

New Relic

Grafana

Job description

From Fivetran’s founding until now, our mission has remained the same: to make access to data as simple and reliable as electricity. With Fivetran, customer data arrives in their warehouses, canonical and ready to query, with no engineering or maintenance required. We’re proud that more organizations continue to leverage our technology every day to become truly data-driven.

About Us

Fivetran and dbt Labs are bringing together two industry-leading companies with a shared mission: helping organizations unlock the full value of their data.

Together, we’re delivering the data infrastructure layer that helps organizations move, transform, and trust their data — from the moment data moves, through every transformation, to the context teams and AI systems rely on.

Fivetran helps organizations automate data movement across the systems, clouds, engines, and tools they rely on. dbt Labs pioneered analytics engineering, helping teams transform data into reliable, governed insights. Together, we support thousands of organizations as they build a trusted foundation for analytics, AI, and better business decisions.

As we bring our teams and technology together, we’re building on the strengths of both companies while continuing to deliver the products and experiences our customers know and trust. It’s an exciting time to join us: we’re creating a company with the scale, talent, and technology to help more organizations put their data to work with greater speed, confidence, and impact.

During this transition period, you may see references to both Fivetran and dbt Labs throughout our recruiting process as we integrate our teams, systems, and career sites.

About The Role

Fivetran is building data pipelines to power the modern data stack for thousands of companies. We're looking for aSenior Staff Software Engineer to join our Systems Engineering team and lead the engineering behind our internal AI-powered application ecosystem.

This is a high-leverage, high-visibility role with three interlocking mandates. First, you will own the development and governance of a code library and set of agent rules that will serve as the architectural foundation for multiple internal AI-enabled webapps at Fivetran. Second, you will work with stakeholders to develop, productionalize, and enhance custom apps built on this foundation. Third, you will act as a trusted advisor to engineering leadership, shaping policy and governance for how non-engineers should use AI to safely develop, productionalize, and deploy apps.

This position sits at the crossroads of software engineering, platform architecture, and AI-assisted development. You will partner closely with business stakeholders and engineering platform teams across the company, translating a fast-moving, experimental “everyone builds” culture into production software held to a high standard of security, reliability, and maintainability.

This is a full-time position based out of our Oakland, CA office. Our hybrid work model offers a blend of remote flexibility and in-person collaboration, including two days in the office each week to connect and build as a team.

Technologies You’ll Use

• Python, TypeScript/React
• BigQuery data sources, Claude API, Agent SDK
• GTM systems - Salesforce, Outreach, Gong, and Zendesk

What You’ll Do

• Independently design and implement features and performance improvements to create highly scalable distributed data pipelines on the cloud
• Develop, maintain, and test code
• Conduct design and code reviews
• Collaborate with peers, product managers, customer support, and other stakeholders to deliver the best product with high quality, performance, and scalability
• Understand and fix challenges related to performance and scalability.
• Participate periodically in on-call rotation
• Participate in the hiring process
• Make Fivetran the most reliable and secure component of our customers’ data infrastructure
• 10+ years of experience in the software industry with a passion for solving complex software engineering problems - experience designing and developing reusable libraries and experimentation platforms for backend and frontend from scratch leveraging industry best practices
• Experience working with distributed systems and cloud security concepts
• Demonstrated ability to write well-structured and performant code
• Ability to independently lead software and infrastructure design to satisfy project requirements
• Can identify design flaws in existing systems and come up with improvements
• Experience in code reviews, design, troubleshooting and testing
• Experience programming in an object oriented / systems language such as Java, C++, C# etc
• Hands-on experience working with any cloud technologies(AWS, GCP, Azure) and containerization methodologies like Docker, K8s
• Experience interacting with continuous integration tools like BuildKite
• Knowledge of observability tools like New Relic/Grafana is a plus
• Understand how to use AI code assist and coding agents to automatically generate code for features, bugs, testing, and investigation
• Ability to use conversational AI systems (like Claude, ChatGPT, and internal chatbots) to support researching, authoring, reviewing, and synthesizing various SDLC artifacts such as TDDs, PRDs, Postmortems, Test Plans, and Proposals

Bonus Skills

• Experience in data processing (ETL, ELT) and/or cloud-based platforms

Perks and Benefits

• 100% employer-paid medical insurance*
• Generous paid time-off policy (PTO), plus paid sick time, inclusive parental leave policy, holidays (including a year end Global Week of Rest), and volunteer days off
• Professional development and training opportunities
• Company virtual happy hours, free food, and fun team-building activities
• Monthly cell phone stipend
• Access to an innovative mental health support platform that offers personalized care and resources in areas such as: therapy, coaching, and self-guided mindfulness exercises for all covered employees and their covered dependents.

*May vary by country and worker type - please reach out to your recruiter for more information

Oakland Pay Range

$232,338 — $290,422 USD

Fivetran brings together high-quality talent across the globe to make data access as easy and reliable as electricity for our customers. We value and recognize that our customers benefit from having innovative teams made of people from many backgrounds, experiences, and identities. Fivetran promotes diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging through attracting, recruiting, developing, and retaining a diverse workforce, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it helps us build a world-class company to better serve our customers, our people and our communities.

We are committed to ensuring that all candidates have an equal opportunity to participate in our interview process. If you require accommodations at any stage of the process due to a disability, medical condition, or any other circumstance, please don't hesitate to submit your request by filling out this form . We will work with you to provide reasonable accommodations to facilitate your participation and ensure a fair and accessible interview experience. Your request and any information provided will be kept confidential and will not impact your candidacy. We look forward to hearing from you and accommodating your needs to the best of our ability.