Senior Staff Systems Engineer

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

Benefits offered by this job

Employer-paid medical insurance

RSU stock grants

Professional development

Monthly cell phone stipend

PTO and holidays

Mental health support platform

Job summary

Fivetran in Oakland, CA is seeking a Senior Staff Systems Engineer to lead the internal AI-powered app ecosystem. You will own a foundational code library, govern agent rules, and guide non-engineers in safe AI usage. This full-time hybrid role collaborates across engineering and business units to deliver secure, scalable platforms.

You will architect and evolve production-grade systems, mentor engineers, and partner with platform teams to maintain high reliability and security standards.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering with backend/frontend experience.
• Experience designing reusable libraries and experimentation platforms.
• Strong distributed systems and cloud security knowledge.
• Ability to lead software and infrastructure design from concept to production.
• Proficient in Java, C++, or C# and cloud technologies.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement features for scalable distributed data pipelines.
• Develop, maintain, and test production code.
• Conduct design and code reviews with peers.
• Collaborate with product, support, and stakeholders to deliver high-quality software.
• Address performance and scalability challenges.
• Participate in on-call rotation and hiring processes.
• Mentor junior developers and promote security best practices.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud security

Performance tuning

Code reviews

Leadership

OOP languages

Java/C++/C#

Cloud platforms

CI/CD (BuildKite)

Observability tools

AI code assist / agents

Tools

Kubernetes

GCP

BigQuery

BuildKite

New Relic

Grafana

Docker

Job description

Oakland, California, United States, AMER

Position Title: Senior Staff Systems Engineer

From Fivetran 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. Were 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, were 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, were building on the strengths of both companies while continuing to deliver the products and experiences our customers know and trust. Its an exciting time to join us: were 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 a Senior 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
• Kubernetes, GCP Cloud SQL (PostgreSQL)
• 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
• Mentor Junior developers
• Make Fivetran the most reliable and secure component of our customers data infrastructure

Skills We’re Looking For

• 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

#LI-HYBRID #LI-VA1

The compensation range displayed on this job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire compensation for the target position and level, and may include sales incentives or target bonuses depending on the role. Our compensation ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Our job titles may span more than one career level. Within the range, individual compensation is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, relevant education or training, business need, market demands. The compensation range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. Your recruiter can share more about the specific compensation range for your location during the hiring process.

Oakland Pay Range

$232,338 — $290,422 USD

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
• RSU stock grants*
• 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

Were honored to be valued at over $5.6 billion, but more importantly, were proud of our core values of Get Stuck In, Do the Right Thing, and One Team, One Dream. Read about us in Forbes.

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.

Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability/protected veterans

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