Staff Data Engineer

United States Digital Space LLC; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 190,000 - 223,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fast-paced environment

Learning and development allowance

Cash and equity compensation

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Fertility/adoption reimbursement

Flexible PTO

Wellness stipend

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is seeking a Staff Data Engineer for the People Data team. You will own core services, data pipelines, and architecture that power our Workforce, Mortgage, Tenant, and other products, ensuring a scalable and reliable platform for AI-powered verification.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and drive data-centric features with a customer-first focus. Expect a fast-paced environment and opportunities to influence product direction.

Qualifications

• 10+ years designing, implementing, and delivering scalable data platforms.
• Experience building large-scale data processing pipelines (ETL/ELT, batch, streaming).
• Expert-level PySpark, Python, and SQL proficiency.
• Data modeling, relational and NoSQL stores (e.g., MongoDB).
• Experience with Kafka, Spark, Iceberg, data lakes, and AWS stack (EKS, EMR, Glue, Athena, S3).
• Knowledge of security and data privacy practices.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, lead, and build an end-to-end data platform.
• Work as an independent contributor with strong ownership.
• Mentor junior engineers on advanced features.
• Collaborate with customers and stakeholders to ship customer-centric features.
• Partner with teams to design and architect new capabilities.
• Experiment and validate customer needs to ship MVPs.
• Maintain a strong quality mindset in deliverables.
• Instrument and analyze experiments with data-driven approaches.
• Monitor and resolve production issues.

Skills

Data platform design

ETL/ELT pipelines

PySpark

Python

SQL

MongoDB

Kafka

Spark

Iceberg

AWS stack

Security best practices

Databricks

Snowflake

Tools

Databricks

Snowflake

Job description

**About the company**the company is building the data platform to power safe and fair decisions. Over 140,000 companies and millions of people rely on the company for AI verification in the moments that matter most: getting a new job, a new place to live, a car ride, childcare, even a date. Customers include Uber, Pennymac, Airbnb, Doordash, and Anthropic.

We're a team that thrives on solving complex problems with innovative solutions that advance our mission. the company is recognized on Forbes Cloud 100 2025 List and is a Y Combinator 2024 Breakthrough Company.

As a Staff Data Engineer on the People Data team, you'll help build and evolve the centralized platform that powers every the company product. This platform stores and serves the identity and people records that underpin the company's Workforce, Mortgage, Tenant, Trust, and Personal products, making it foundational to the company's AI-powered verification platform and every high-stakes decision our customers make.

In this role, you'll own the core services, data pipelines, and architecture that keep this platform scalable, reliable, and ready for the next generation of the company products. You'll solve complex distributed systems and data engineering challenges while influencing the technical direction of one of the company's most critical platforms.

What you'll do

• Architect, design, lead, and build an end-to-end, performant, reliable, scalable data platform.

• Work as an independent contributor: solve problems and deliver high-quality solutions with minimal oversight and strong ownership.

• Mentor and guide junior engineers to deliver complex, next-generation features.

• Bring a customer-centric, product-oriented mindset. Collaborate with customers and internal stakeholders to resolve product ambiguities and ship features that solve real customer problems.

• Partner with engineering, product, design, and other stakeholders to design and architect new features.

• Experimentation mindset: autonomy and empowerment to validate a customer need, get team buy-in, and ship a rapid MVP.

• Quality mindset: you treat quality as a non-negotiable part of your software deliverables.

• Analytical mindset: instrument and deploy new product experiments with a data-driven approach.

• Monitor, triage, and resolve production issues for the team's services.

• Create and maintain data pipelines and foundational datasets to support product and business needs.

What you bring

• 10+ years designing, implementing, and delivering highly scalable, performant data platforms.

• Experience building large-scale data processing pipelines using ETL/ELT, batch, and stream processing.

• Expert-level proficiency in PySpark, Python, and SQL.

• Expertise in data modeling, relational databases, and NoSQL data stores (e.g., MongoDB).

• Experience with big data technologies such as Kafka, Spark, Iceberg, data lakes, and the AWS stack (EKS, EMR, Serverless, Glue, Athena, S3, etc.).

• Knowledge of security best practices and data privacy concerns.

• Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail.

• Nice to have: Experience or knowledge of data processing platforms such as Databricks or Snowflake.

• An A-player mindset with a strong bias for action: you raise the bar, move with urgency, stay resilient through ambiguity, and take ownership to deliver meaningful outcomes.

#LI-TD1

Pay Transparency Disclosure

*We use geographic cost of labor as an input to develop ranges for our roles and as such, each location where we hire may have a different range. If this role is remote, we have listed the top to the bottom of the possible range, but we will specify the target range for an exact location when you are selected for a recruiting discussion. For more information on our compensation philosophy, seeour website**.*

On-target Earnings OR Base Salary range (San Francisco, CA)

$224,000-$264,000 USD

On-target Earnings OR Base Salary range (Denver, CO)

$190,000-$223,000 USD

What We Offer

• A fast-paced and collaborative environment

• Learning and development allowance

• Competitive cash and equity compensation, and opportunity for advancement

• 100% medical, dental, and vision coverage

• Up to $25K reimbursement for fertility, adoption, and parental planning services

• Flexible PTO policy

• Monthly wellness stipend

*At the company, we believe an in office work environment strengthens collaboration, drives innovation, and encourages connection. Our hub locations are Denver, CO; San Francisco, CA; Nashville, TN; and Santiago, Chile. Individuals are expected to work from the office 3+ days a week. In-office perks are provided, such as lunch five times a week, a commuter stipend, and an abundance of snacks and beverages. A relocation stipend may be available for those willing to relocate to a the company hub location.*

Equal Employment Opportunities at the company*the company is committed to building the best product and company, which requires hiring talented and qualified individuals with a diverse set of perspectives and lived experiences. the company believes in hiring people of all backgrounds, including those whose histories are impacted by the justice system in accordance with local, state, and/or federal laws, including the San Francisco's Fair Chance Ordinance.*Applicant Privacy PolicyIf you are a California resident or are located in Alberta or British Columbia, our Applicant Privacy Policy applies to our collection and processing of your personal information when you apply for a role with us or otherwise participate in our recruitment process.

**Legitimate the company emails will always include our official domain name after the @ symbol (e.g., [e-mail] or [e-mail]).*