Staff Backend Engineer (Catalog)

DataHub; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 225,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible savings accounts

Unlimited PTO and sick leave

Monthly coworking stipend

Equity for every employee

Job summary

DataHub is seeking an exceptional Staff Backend Engineer to lead the development of their Platform framework that will connect diverse data systems and enhance metadata collection capabilities. You will be instrumental in building APIs and implementing real-time data processing architectures.

With over 8 years of experience in production-grade distributed systems and strong skills in Python, this role offers a competitive salary and equity options. The position is hybrid, allowing work from the Palo Alto office three days a week.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in building systems at scale.
• Experience with high-scale distributed architecture.
• Hands-on experience developing applications with LLMs.

Responsibilities

• Lead development of DataHub's Platform framework.
• Build clean APIs for the connector ecosystem.
• Implement event-driven architectures for real-time data processing.

Skills

Building production-grade distributed systems

Advanced Python expertise

High-scale data processing

Strong systems knowledge

API design expertise

Tools

AWS

Job description

DataHub is an AI & Data Context Platform adopted by over 3,000 enterprises, including Apple, CVS Health, Netflix, and Visa. Innovated jointly with a thriving open-source community of 13,000+ members, DataHub's metadata graph provides in-depth context of AI and data assets with best-in-class scalability and extensibility.

The company's enterprise SaaS offering, DataHub Cloud, delivers a fully managed solution with AI-powered discovery, observability, and governance capabilities. Organizations rely on DataHub solutions to accelerate time-to-value from their data investments, ensure AI system reliability, and implement unified governance, enabling AI & data to work together and bring order to data chaos.

The Challenge

As AI and data products become business-critical, enterprises face a metadata crisis:

• No unified way to track the complex data supply chain feeding AI systems
• Engineering teams struggling with data discovery, lineage, and governance
• Organizations needing machine‑scale metadata management, not just human‑browseable catalogs

Why This Matters

This is where infrastructure meets impact. The metadata layer you'll build will directly power the next generation of AI systems at massive scale. Your code will determine how safely and effectively thousands of organizations deploy AI, affecting millions of users worldwide.

The Role

We're looking for an exceptional Staff, Backend engineer to lead development of DataHub's Platform framework – the core that connects diverse data systems and powers our metadata collection capabilities.

You’ll Build

• Clean, intuitive APIs for our connector ecosystem
• Event‑driven architectures for real‑time metadata processing
• Schema mapping between diverse systems and DataHub's unified model
• Versioning systems for AI assets (training data, model weights, embeddings)

You Have

• 8+ years building production‑grade distributed systems
• Advanced Python and API design expertise
• Experience with high‑scale data processing or integration frameworks
• Strong systems knowledge and distributed architecture experience
• Proven track record solving complex technical challenges
• Built and maintained online applications serving live traffic at scale (100+ QPS)
• Set up monitoring and alerting for services
• Designed indexing, storage, and data architectures to make large‑scale data accessible to online services
• Designed and scaled distributed systems
• Hands‑on experience developing in a tight loop with LLMs and applying best practices for scalable LLM development

Languages

• One of Java/Scala/Kotlin/C#/Go – very strong nice‑to‑have / borderline must‑have
• Python/TypeScript/Node.js – nice‑to‑have

Technical Skills

• AWS

Bonus Points

• Experience with DataHub or similar metadata/ETL frameworks (Airflow, Airbyte, dbt)
• Open‑source contributions
• Experience building and maintaining services that make calls to LLMs in order to serve live traffic
• Experience fine‑tuning LLM‑powered applications exposed to end users
• Early‑stage startup experience

Location and Compensation

Bay Area (hybrid, 3 days in Palo Alto office)

Salary Range: $225,000 to $300,000

Benefits and Perks

We invest in people so they can do their best work and enjoy doing it. Our benefits reflect the way we build: practical, thoughtful, and designed to support long‑term growth.

Competitive compensation

We offer salaries that reflect your skills, experience, and the impact you make. You bring value—we make sure you're recognized for it.

Equity for everyone

Every team member receives an ownership stake in the company. When we grow, you grow with us.

Remote Work

All roles are remote unless otherwise specified in the job description. Review the job description to confirm if the role you are interested in is remote or hybrid.

Location flexibility

Home office, coworking space, or something in between? We support your ideal setup. You’ll receive a monthly coworking stipend to use whenever you need a change of pace or in‑person collaboration time.

You're well‑being matters. We cover 99% of medical, dental, and vision premiums employees, and 65% for dependents.

Flexible savings accounts

We offer FSAs to help cover planned or unexpected healthcare costs. You can also opt into a Dependent Care FSA to support family needs.

Support for every path to parenthood

Through Carrot Fertility, we provide inclusive fertility benefits and family‑forming support. All U.S. employees have access, regardless of age, gender identity, or family structure.

Time off that works for you

We trust you to take the time you need. Our unlimited PTO and sick leave policy is designed for flexibility, rest, and real life.

Why Join Us

DataHub is at a rare inflection point: we’ve achieved product‑market fit, earned the trust of leading enterprises, and secured backing from top‑tier investors like Bessemer Venture Partners and 8VC. The context platform market is expected to grow from $1B to $9B in the next five years—and we’re leading the way.

By joining our team, you’ll:

• Tackle high‑impact challenges at the heart of enterprise AI infrastructure
• Ship production systems that power real‑world use cases at global scale
• Collaborate with a high‑caliber team of builders who’ve scaled some of the most influential data tools in the world
• Build the next generation of AI‑native data systems, including conversational agents, intelligent classification, automated governance, and more

If you're passionate about technology, enjoy working with customers, and want to be part of a fast‑growing company changing the industry, we want to hear from you!