Software Engineer, Data Systems

Gamma; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Gamma in San Francisco is hiring a Staff Data Engineer to own its data infrastructure and architecture. The role requires expertise in distributed systems, Apache Kafka, and Snowflake. Responsibilities include designing scalable data systems and leading data infrastructure initiatives.

Compensation ranges from $230K to $310K plus benefits and equity. Ideal candidates have 10+ years of experience and strong leadership skills. The team operates in-office 4–5 days a week with flexible remote work options.

Qualifications

• 10+ years as a data or software engineer with expertise in distributed systems and SaaS.
• Expert knowledge of Apache Kafka and event streaming platforms required.
• Hands-on experience with Snowflake, including performance optimization and data modeling.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve end-to-end event pipeline architecture for data infrastructure.
• Design and architect distributed data systems at massive scale.
• Lead initiatives for building and optimizing CDC pipelines.

Skills

Distributed systems expertise

Apache Kafka

Snowflake proficiency

Leadership and mentorship

Data modeling

Tools

dbt

Terraform

Postgres

Job description

Location

San Francisco

Employment Type

Full time

Department

Engineering

About the role

You'll own Gamma's data infrastructure and architecture as we scale to hundreds of millions of users and petabytes of data. This means defining the technical strategy for our end-to-end event pipeline architecture, designing distributed systems that handle massive scale with reliability, and establishing the foundation for how data flows through Gamma. You'll solve the hardest data engineering challenges we face while setting the technical direction for data infrastructure across the company.

As a Staff Data Engineer, you'll balance hands‑on engineering with technical leadership. You'll architect solutions for orders of magnitude growth, mentor engineers across the organization, and drive strategic decisions about our data stack. You'll work closely with analytics, product, and engineering leadership to enable data‑driven decision making at scale while building systems that serve millions of users and inform critical business decisions.

Our team has a strong in‑office culture and works in person 4–5 days per week in San Francisco. We love working together to stay creative and connected, with flexibility to work from home when focus matters most.

What you'll do

• Own and evolve our end‑to‑end event pipeline architecture, from Kafka ingestion through Snowflake analytics, setting technical direction for data infrastructure

• Design and architect distributed data systems that scale to orders of magnitude more data volume while maintaining world‑class query performance

• Lead initiatives to build and optimize CDC (change data capture) pipelines and streaming data transformations at massive scale

• Establish best practices for data quality, pipeline reliability, and system observability across the organization

• Drive strategic technical decisions about data modeling, infrastructure architecture, and technology choices

• Mentor engineers and elevate data engineering practices across analytics, product, and engineering teams

What you'll bring

• 10+ years as a data or software engineer with deep expertise in distributed systems, data infrastructure, and high‑growth SaaS products at massive scale

• Expert‑level knowledge of Apache Kafka (producers, consumers, Kafka Connect, stream processing) and event streaming platforms

• Extensive hands‑on experience with Snowflake, including performance optimization, cost management, and data modeling; strong foundation in Postgres, CDC patterns, and replication strategies

• Proven track record architecting and leading major data infrastructure initiatives through orders‑of‑magnitude growth

• Experience establishing best practices and driving technical strategy across organizations

• Strong communication skills with a history of influencing technical direction across engineering, analytics, and leadership

• Proficiency with dbt, Terraform, and working knowledge of data governance, privacy compliance (GDPR, CCPA), and security best practices

Compensation range:

The base salary for this full‑time position, which spans multiple internal levels depending on qualifications, ranges between $230K - $310K plus benefits & equity.

Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including but not limited to experience and expertise in the requirements listed above.

If you're interested in this role but you don't meet every requirement, we encourage you to apply anyway! We're always excited about meeting great people.