Staff Data Engineer I

Bain & Co.; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 141,000 - 169,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) plan

Premium medical/dental/vision coverage

Generous paid time off

Fitness reimbursements

Job summary

Bain & Co. is seeking a Staff Data Engineer I for its NGSS team embedded in Aura, Bain’s analytics platform. You will own data architecture, build scalable pipelines, and ensure reliability across production data systems.

Responsibilities include leading greenfield initiatives, optimizing performance and cost, and mentoring engineers. This role emphasizes collaboration across engineering, product, and data science teams in a startup-like data environment.

Qualifications

• 5-8+ years of experience designing scalable data architecture.
• Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• Strong software engineering, including testing, CI/CD, and code reviews.
• Ability to lead technical initiatives across cross-functional teams.
• Deep SQL expertise and Snowflake experience.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture, reliability, and scalability of Aura’s data platform.
• Design, build, and maintain reliable data pipelines from ingestion to analytics.
• Lead greenfield data infrastructure projects end-to-end.
• Optimize performance and cost across data workflows.
• Establish best practices, testing, documentation, and observability.
• Provide production support and triage data questions from stakeholders.
• Collaborate with Engineering, Product, Data Science, and AI teams.
• Mentor engineers through code reviews and guidance.

Skills

Data architecture

Data pipelines

Python

SQL

OpenSearch

CI/CD

Code reviews

Snowflake

Airflow

AWS

Education

Associate’s/Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Snowflake

Airflow

DBT

Python

Job description

Bain & Co. is seeking a Staff Data Engineer I to join its NGSS team, embedded in Aura, Bain’s global workforce data and analytics platform. This role focuses on building and operating the data infrastructure that enables analytics, machine learning, and product experiences, with ownership across architecture, reliability, scalability, and day-to-day production support.

Role context

As part of the Aura platform, you will help ensure the underlying systems are dependable and cost-effective, supporting downstream analytics layers including dashboards and machine learning features.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture, reliability, and scalability of Aura’s data platform.
• Design, build, and maintain reliable and scalable data pipelines from raw ingestion through downstream analytics layers, including dashboards and ML features.
• Lead greenfield data infrastructure projects from scratch and take ownership through production delivery.
• Optimize performance and cost across data workflows, including query tuning and storage optimization.
• Establish and maintain data engineering best practices, including testing, documentation, and observability.
• Participate in operational support and continuous improvement for production data systems.
• Establish pipeline alerting and data quality monitors using DBT across the data stack.
• Triage and resolve inbound data questions from business and technical stakeholders, including data discrepancies, pipeline issues, and ad-hoc data requests.
• Partner with Engineering, Product, Data Science, and AI teams to deliver scalable data solutions.
• Mentor engineers through code reviews and technical guidance.

Experience & qualifications

• 5-8+ years of experience designing scalable data architecture.
• Associate’s/Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.
• Strong software engineering best practices, including testing, CI/CD, and code reviews.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives and collaborate across cross-functional teams.
• Advanced SQL and deep experience with modern data warehouses, especially Snowflake.
• Proficiency with orchestration tools such as Airflow.
• Experience with DBT for data modeling, transformation, and data quality monitoring.
• Strong Python programming skills.
• Experience in cloud environments, particularly AWS (S3, Lambda, ECS, RDS, MWAA).
• Familiarity with version control, CI/CD workflows, and Infrastructure-as-Code.
• Experience owning and delivering greenfield projects independently.
• Deep expertise in Snowflake performance tuning and cost optimization.
• Background in analytics or ML data preparation.
• Prior experience embedded in a startup or small data team.
• Familiarity with OpenSearch for log analysis or search-backed data products.

Technologies

• SQL, Snowflake, Airflow, DBT, Python
• AWS (S3, Lambda, ECS, RDS, MWAA)
• OpenSearch

Compensation & location

• Location: Chicago, IL (onsite)
• Base salary range (U.S. Illinois): USD 141,000 - 169,250 per year
• Compensation includes base salary, an annual discretionary performance bonus, and a 401(k) plan with an annual employer contribution based on years of service and Bain’s benefits package.
• This role may also be eligible for other elements of discretionary compensation.

Benefits

• 4.5% 401(k) company contribution, increasing after 3 years of service and 100% vested upon start date.
• Bain & Company comprehensive benefits and wellness program designed to support personal independence, protection, and stability.
• Bain pays 100% individual employee premiums for medical, dental, and vision programs.
• Generous paid time off, including parental leave, sick leave, and paid holidays.
• Paid Life and Long-Term Disability insurance.
• Annual fitness reimbursements.