Staff Data Platform Engineer: Scale, Governance & Impact

drweng; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

DRW in Chicago is seeking a Staff Engineer focused on the Data Platform. You will scale data platforms, translate data strategy into engineering products, and deliver solutions used by Traders, Quant Researchers, and Back-Office teams.

This role blends strategic thinking, architectural leadership, and hands-on development, with mentoring of engineers and driving cross-team initiatives across the data ecosystem.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing and operating large-scale data systems.
• Ability to translate data strategy into engineering roadmaps.
• Experience delivering managed platform services across teams.
• Experience scaling metadata management systems (catalogs/lineage).
• Proficiency in Java and/or Python; strong SQL and Linux knowledge.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems trade-offs.
• Production experience with batch and streaming processing at scale.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the vision and evolution of DRW's Data Platform.
• Translate business priorities into platform capabilities and roadmaps.
• Design and own managed platform services for storage and computation.
• Lead cross-team delivery and turn ambiguous requirements into designs.
• Drive architecture reviews and document trade-offs.
• Oversee data governance, metadata, quality, and access controls.
• Mentor engineers through design reviews and code reviews.

Skills

Java/Python development

SQL

Linux environments

Distributed systems design

Architectural leadership

Mentorship

Stakeholder communication

Tools

Data catalogs

Lineage tracking

Job description

DRW in Chicago is seeking a Staff Engineer focused on the Data Platform. You will scale data platforms, translate data strategy into engineering products, and deliver solutions used by Traders, Quant Researchers, and Back-Office teams.

This role blends strategic thinking, architectural leadership, and hands-on development, with mentoring of engineers and driving cross-team initiatives across the data ecosystem.