Software Engineer, Data Governance

Coda; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 190,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health care

Disability insurance

401(k) matching

Parental leave

Paid time off

Floating holidays

Home office stipend

Professional development budget

Job summary

Superhuman is seeking a Senior Engineer for the Data Platform to shape governance across our platform. You will design and implement data privacy, security in-flight and at rest, and metadata management for billions of events daily.

Collaborating with Privacy, Legal, Security, and Trust Engineering, you will mentor engineers and influence architectural decisions to scale while maintaining trust and compliance.

Qualifications

• 8+ years with large-scale distributed systems.
• 5+ years running live production environments.
• Strong fundamentals in algorithms & data structures.
• Hands-on Spark and lakehouse/cloud data warehouse experience.
• Experience with GDPR/CCPA and data governance/privacy.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead data governance systems at scale.
• Design secure, scalable data handling and privacy controls.
• Champion metadata management and data lineage.
• Make high-level design decisions for platform evolution & tech choices.
• Collaborate with Privacy, Legal, Security & Trust Engineering.
• Mentor engineers across backend and data teams.

Skills

Distributed systems

Data governance

Algorithms

Spark

Cloud data warehouse

Privacy & Security

Mentoring

Communication

Tools

Spark

Delta Lake

Snowflake

dbt

Job description

Superhuman offers a dynamic hybrid working model for this role. This flexible approach gives team members the best of both worlds: plenty of focus time and in-person collaboration that fosters trust, innovation, and a strong team culture.

Preferred locations for team members for our Data Platform roles are our Seattle or San Francisco hubs.

About Superhuman

Grammarly is now part of Superhuman, the AI productivity platform on a mission to unlock the superhuman potential in everyone. The Superhuman suite of apps and agents brings AI wherever people work, integrating with over 1 million applications and websites. The company's products include Grammarly's writing assistance, Docs’ collaborative workspace, Mail's inbox management, and Go, the proactive AI assistant that understands context and provides proactive assistance. Founded in 2009, Superhuman empowers over 40 million people, 50,000 organizations, and 3,000 educational institutions worldwide to eliminate busywork and focus on what matters. Learn more at superhuman.com and about our values here.

The Opportunity

Want to build the governance layer that lets a world-class data platform move fast without ever putting trust at risk? As a Senior Engineer on our Data Platform team, you’ll help us build a platform that efficiently ingests and processes over 70 billion events every day to make our products better. This is a high-impact role at the intersection of Software Engineering and Data, where the systems you build bake governance into the entire data lifecycle, from ingestion to analytics to machine learning.

As a compound startup, we’re building an integrated suite rather than separate tools, so your work spans the full product portfolio and the connections across it. Our products serve both consumers and enterprises, which creates an unusually rich and sensitive data environment. The governance layer you build connects those surfaces, and the systems you design shape how safely, responsibly, and compliantly data is handled across the entire platform.

What you’ll do

As a Senior Engineer on the Data Platform team, you’ll shape the architecture and technical strategy for Data Governance across our platform, owning data privacy, security both in-flight and at rest, regulatory compliance, and metadata management. You’ll design and lead robust, scalable, and reliable systems that handle large volumes of data and enforce governance and privacy across the company.

You’ll partner closely with cross-functional teams, including Privacy & Legal, Security, and Trust Engineering, to strengthen our governance posture while keeping governance as an enabler for engineering teams rather than a blocker. As a senior IC, you’ll also mentor engineers and help set the strategic direction for the platform.

In this role, you’ll:

• Architect and lead the large-scale systems behind data governance, including privacy policy enforcement, metadata and lineage management.

• Design solutions that keep data secure and purpose-driven, protecting its confidentiality and integrity as it moves through the platform.

• Champion metadata management systems that make data more discoverable and keep lineage accurate across the platform.

• Make the high-level architectural calls on system design, technology choices, and platform evolution, so that what we build scales and lasts.

• Collaborate with key stakeholders across Privacy & Legal, Security, and Trust Engineering.

• Partner with leadership to shape the charter and technical roadmaps.

• Mentor engineers across back-end infrastructure and data engineering, fostering a culture of collaboration and technical excellence.

Qualifications

• You have 8+ years of experience with large-scale distributed computing systems, with expertise in both data-intensive applications and data governance systems.

• You have 5+ years of experience running live production environments, including high-load systems or data-intensive workflows, with a focus on uptime and reliability.

• You have excellent software engineering fundamentals, including a strong grasp of algorithms and data structures.

• You have deep, hands-on experience with Spark and a modern lakehouse or cloud data warehouse (Databricks, Delta Lake, dbt, Snowflake, or similar).

• You can design scalable, secure, and maintainable data models and architectures, and you understand data governance and privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.

• You show perseverance when faced with tough technical problems.

• You’re a strategic thinker who can weigh building in-house against leveraging third-party solutions, balancing speed, scalability, and long-term viability.

• You’re an excellent communicator and collaborator who works well across diverse teams and stakeholders, translating business needs into robust solutions and aligning everyone on technical goals.

• You work independently with minimal guidance, managing tasks and priorities across multiple projects, executing efficiently, collaborating across functions, and thriving in a fast-paced, results-driven environment.

Nice to have

• Experience with specific data governance systems, such as data deletion, purpose-based access controls, and data exports.

• Comfort with data lake and lakehouse technologies (for example, Delta Lake, Iceberg, or Hudi) and managing cloud infrastructure as code (for example, Terraform).

• A track record of building metadata management systems & exposure to data classification mechanisms.

• Experience partnering with Legal, Privacy, and Trust teams as a strategic data partner to enhance governance and privacy posture.

Compensation and Benefits

Superhuman offers all team members competitive pay along with a benefits package encompassing the following and more:

• Excellent health care (including a wide range of medical, dental, vision, mental health, and fertility benefits)

• Disability and life insurance options

• 401(k) matching

• Paid parental leave

• 20 days of paid time off per year, 12 days of paid holidays per year, two floating holidays per year, and flexible sick time

• Generous stipends (including those for caregiving, pet care, wellness, your home office, and more)

• Annual professional development budget and opportunities

Superhuman takes a market-based approach to compensation, which means base pay may vary depending on your location. Our US locations are categorized into two compensation zones based on proximity to our hub locations.

Base pay may vary considerably depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The expected salary ranges for this position are outlined below by compensation zone and may be modified in the future.

At Superhuman, we value our differences, and we encourage all to apply—especially those whose identities are traditionally underrepresented in tech organizations. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, political belief, or any other characteristic protected by law. Superhuman is an equal opportunity employer and a participant in the US federal E-Verify program (US). We also abide by the Employment Equity Act (Canada).