Staff Data Engineer

Software Directory; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

ClickUp is seeking a Staff Data Engineer to own the architecture and technical vision of our data platform, operating across AWS serverless technologies, Snowflake, dbt, and Terraform. You will drive reliability, scalability, and cost optimization, while mentoring engineers and shaping cross-team data initiatives.

This role emphasizes leadership in data infrastructure, observability, and developer experience, with impact across analytics, data science, and product engineering teams.

Qualifications

• Significant professional experience in data engineering or backend/infrastructure engineering, with at least 3 years operating at a senior or staff level.
• Proven track record of owning architecture for data platforms or large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in AWS cloud services (Lambda, Fargate, Step Functions, S3, Kinesis, DynamoDB, Aurora) and infrastructure as code (Terraform and/or CDK).
• Expert-level SQL and Snowflake (or equivalent cloud data warehouse) knowledge, including performance tuning and cost optimization.
• Strong experience with dbt and modern ELT/ETL patterns at scale.
• Advanced Python skills with emphasis on building reusable libraries, frameworks, and tooling.
• Hands-on experience with orchestration frameworks (Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect) in production environments.
• Experience building data infrastructure for AI/ML: feature stores, training pipelines, embedding pipelines, model serving, or LLM integration.
• Deep understanding of streaming and event-driven architectures (Kinesis, Kafka, or equivalent).
• Mastery of CI/CD, Git workflows, containerization (Docker), and deployment automation.
• Strong communication skills: ability to write technical RFCs, influence without authority, and translate complex trade-offs for non-technical stakeholders.
• Track record of mentoring and growing engineers, with a multiplier mindset.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical architecture of ClickUp's data platform, making design decisions that balance scalability, cost, reliability, and velocity.
• Define and drive the technical roadmap for data infrastructure in partnership with leadership.
• Design systems at scale: build frameworks, abstractions, and patterns that other engineers use daily.
• Lead complex, cross-team technical initiatives spanning data engineering, analytics engineering, data science, and data analytics.
• Drive cost optimization across cloud infrastructure and compute, turning efficiency into a competitive advantage.
• Build and evolve our data pipelines using AWS serverless (Lambda, Fargate, Step Functions, Kinesis, S3, DynamoDB, Aurora), Snowflake, and dbt.
• Establish and champion engineering standards: observability, testing, CI/CD, code review, and documentation practices.
• Design and maintain infrastructure for AI/ML workloads, including LLM frameworks, feature pipelines, training data systems, and model monitoring.
• Mentor senior engineers, provide technical guidance through design reviews, and raise the overall engineering quality of the team.
• Influence org-wide technical decisions and represent data engineering in company‑level architecture discussions.

Skills

Senior data engineer

SQL

Python

RFC writing

Tools

AWS services

Terraform

dbt

Airflow

Dagster

Prefect

Kubernetes

Docker

Job description

At ClickUp, we're building the future of work: the first truly converged AI workspace unifying tasks, docs, chat, calendar, and enterprise search, all supercharged by context-driven AI. We are an AI-native company. Every team member is expected to leverage AI daily, and we evaluate AI fluency as part of our hiring process. Join us and help redefine what's possible.

We're looking for a Staff Data Engineer to own the architecture and technical vision of our data platform. This is a high-leverage, high-autonomy role where you'll set the technical bar for the team, drive cross-functional alignment on data infrastructure strategy, and solve our hardest engineering problems. You'll operate across AWS serverless technologies, Snowflake, dbt, and Terraform, but your impact goes well beyond any single tool: you'll shape how we think about reliability, scalability, cost, and developer experience at the platform level.

This role is for someone who doesn't just build great systems, but makes the engineers around them better.

The Role:

• Own the technical architecture of ClickUp's data platform, making design decisions that balance scalability, cost, reliability, and velocity.
• Define and drive the technical roadmap for data infrastructure in partnership with leadership.
• Design systems at scale: build frameworks, abstractions, and patterns that other engineers use daily.
• Lead complex, cross-team technical initiatives spanning data engineering, analytics engineering, data science, and data analytics.
• Drive cost optimization across cloud infrastructure and compute, turning efficiency into a competitive advantage.
• Build and evolve our data pipelines using AWS serverless (Lambda, Fargate, Step Functions, Kinesis, S3, DynamoDB, Aurora), Snowflake, and dbt.
• Establish and champion engineering standards: observability, testing, CI/CD, code review, and documentation practices.
• Design and maintain infrastructure for AI/ML workloads, including LLM frameworks, feature pipelines, training data systems, and model monitoring.
• Mentor senior engineers, provide technical guidance through design reviews, and raise the overall engineering quality of the team.
• Influence org-wide technical decisions and represent data engineering in company‑level architecture discussions.

Qualifications:

• Significant professional experience in data engineering or backend/infrastructure engineering, with at least 3 years operating at a senior or staff level.
• Proven track record of owning architecture for data platforms or large‑scale distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in AWS cloud services (Lambda, Fargate, Step Functions, S3, Kinesis, DynamoDB, Aurora) and infrastructure as code (Terraform and/or CDK).
• Expert‑level SQL and Snowflake (or equivalent cloud data warehouse) knowledge, including performance tuning and cost optimization.
• Strong experience with dbt and modern ELT/ETL patterns at scale.
• Advanced Python skills with emphasis on building reusable libraries, frameworks, and tooling.
• Hands‑on experience with orchestration frameworks (Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect) in production environments.
• Experience building data infrastructure for AI/ML: feature stores, training pipelines, embedding pipelines, model serving, or LLM integration.
• Deep understanding of streaming and event‑driven architectures (Kinesis, Kafka, or equivalent).
• Mastery of CI/CD, Git workflows, containerization (Docker), and deployment automation.
• Strong communication skills: ability to write technical RFCs, influence without authority, and translate complex trade‑offs for non-technical stakeholders.
• Track record of mentoring and growing engineers, with a multiplier mindset.

Desirable

• Experience operating data platforms at high scale (petabyte‑level warehouses, millions of events/sec).
• Familiarity with data mesh or data product paradigms.
• Experience with FinOps practices and cloud cost management at scale.
• Prior experience in a technical leadership role without direct reports (staff/principal IC track).
• Contributions to open‑source data tools or technical communities.

Equal Opportunity Employer

ClickUp is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.

Privacy Notice

ClickUp collects and processes personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws. You can find further details by viewing our Global Candidate Privacy Notice. If you are a Philippine Job Applicant, please also see our Philippine Data Privacy Notice for further details.

Visa Sponsorship

Please note we are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa for roles outside of engineering and product at this time. Sponsorship for engineering and product roles is not guaranteed, but is instead based on the business needs for that specific role at that time. Please reach out to the recruiter with any questions.

AI Processing Notice

ClickUp may use artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to help review and screen candidates' employment applications against role‑related criteria. These tools support, but do not replace, human decision‑making. If you have questions or need an accommodation in the recruitment process, please contact us at [e-mail].