Staff Data Platform Engineer: Secure, Scalable DataOps

AppFolio; Goleta (CA); On-site; USD 152,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

AppFolio is seeking a senior Data Platform Engineer to own the operational backbone of our data infrastructure on the Business Data Platform. You will help mature governance, access controls, and scalable data delivery across analytics, AI, and decision-making.

You’ll partner with InfoSec, Compliance, and data teams to implement least-privilege access, auditable pipelines, and strong observability while advancing CI/CD.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in DataOps, Data Platform Engineering, DevOps, or related roles in modern cloud data environments.
• Proficiency with SQL, Python, Airflow, Mulesoft, Linux scripting, and dbt.
• Strong experience with AWS (S3, EC2, EKS), Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Experience with Snowflake data warehouse including security and governance.
• Advanced proficiency with Airflow and CI/CD pipelines; GitOps workflows and IaC (Terraform).
• Experience building self-serve data platforms and data access controls (IAM, encryption, audit logging).
• Familiar with Snowflake RBAC, masking policies, and secure UDFs/SPROCs for AI workloads.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain observability and testing solutions for AppFolio's Business Data Platform.
• Own the CI/CD architecture for GitHub repositories, automated checks, pipelines, and orchestration.
• Manage service accounts, roles, and permissions across Snowflake, dbt, and BI tools.
• Define and enforce Data Pipeline SLOs and access governance for data access and AI workloads.
• Partner with InfoSec and Compliance to ensure auditability and privacy frameworks across the platform.
• Maintain lineage and metadata, implement infrastructure-as-code for data platform components.
• Drive automation of environment provisioning, credential rotation, and usage monitoring.
• Collaborate with data engineers, data science engineers, and analysts to improve self-service capabilities.

Skills

SQL

Python

Airflow

dbt

Mulesoft

Linux scripting

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

Snowflake

CI/CD pipelines

GitOps

Terraform

IAM & encryption

RBAC / data access controls

Tools

Snowflake

dbt

Airflow

Terraform

GitOps

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

AppFolio is seeking a senior Data Platform Engineer to own the operational backbone of our data infrastructure on the Business Data Platform. You will help mature governance, access controls, and scalable data delivery across analytics, AI, and decision-making.

You’ll partner with InfoSec, Compliance, and data teams to implement least-privilege access, auditable pipelines, and strong observability while advancing CI/CD.