Staff Engineer - Data

Wingstop Restaurants Inc.; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited paid time off

Competitive bonus structure

Health savings account options

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits

401k contributions

Paid maternity and paternity leave

Job summary

Wingstop Restaurants Inc. is seeking a Staff Engineer – Data to oversee the architecture and scalability of our data ecosystem. This role is crucial in supporting a high-volume, consumer-facing digital platform that manages billions in annual transactions. The ideal candidate will have experience with AWS, relational databases like Aurora PostgreSQL, and event processing techniques to ensure data integrity and high performance.

Successful candidates will play a key role in leading complex data initiatives and optimizing data flows across various systems while mentoring other engineers to enhance data practices. Join Wingstop to help drive our mission of serving the world flavor!

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in data engineering or related field.
• Deep knowledge of distributed data systems and event processing techniques.
• Ability to mentor engineers and promote best practices in data engineering.

Responsibilities

• Architect and evolve data platform across systems.
• Design scalable data systems on AWS.
• Optimize data flows between systems and analytics platforms.
• Ensure data integrity and availability across systems.,

Skills

Data architecture expertise

Experience with AWS

Event-driven pipelines

Data consistency and integrity

Mentorship

Tools

Aurora PostgreSQL

Redis

Snowflake

Job description

Overview

Who We AreWe’re not in the wing business. We’re in the flavor business. It’s been our mission to Serve the World Flavor since we first opened in 1994, and we’re just getting started. 1997 saw the opening of our first brand partner operated Wingstop location, and by 2002 we had served the world one billion wings. It’s flavor that defines us and has made Wingstop one of the fastest growing brands in the restaurant industry.

Who We AreWe’re not in the wing business. We’re in the flavor business. It’s been our mission to Serve the World Flavor since we first opened in 1994, and we’re just getting started. 1997 saw the opening of our first brand partner operated Wingstop location, and by 2002 we had served the world one billion wings. It’s flavor that defines us and has made Wingstop one of the fastest growing brands in the restaurant industry.

Above all else – our success is largely due to our people and our core values, or what we call The Wingstop Way of being entrepreneurial, service-minded, fun, and authentic. We believe having a strong people foundation centered on these collective values creates a crave-worthy culture and talented team, as well as ensures our brand is poised for accelerated growth. We all win together.

What We’ll Need

The Staff Engineer – Data is responsible for the architecture, integrity, and scalability of the data ecosystem that powers a high-volume, consumer-facing digital platform supporting billions in annual transaction volume. This role owns the design and operation of data systems spanning transactional databases, real-time data streams, and analytical platforms.

This engineer leads the evolution of a cloud-native data architecture on AWS, including relational data stores (Aurora PostgreSQL), in-memory systems (Redis), streaming/event-driven pipelines, and downstream analytics platforms such as Snowflake and behavioral/observability tools. The role ensures data consistency, availability, and performance across operational and analytical use cases.

The Staff Engineer defines data standards, governance, and access patterns that enable reliable, real-time decision-making across engineering, product, and business teams. They are accountable for the reliability, observability, and performance of data systems in production, including incident response and long-term resilience.

This role operates at high scale and complexity, requiring deep expertise in distributed data systems, high-throughput event processing, and the challenges of maintaining data integrity across multiple platforms. The Staff Engineer partners cross-functionally to align data architecture with business strategy and unlock actionable insights from across the ecosystem.

What You’ll Need

• Own the architecture and evolution of the data platform across transactional, streaming, and analytical systems
• Design and operate scalable data systems on AWS, including Aurora PostgreSQL, Redis, and event-driven pipelines
• Build and optimize data flows between operational systems and analytics platforms (e.g., Snowflake, observability and product analytics tools)
• Ensure data integrity, consistency, and availability across distributed systems
• Design for high-throughput, low-latency data processing supporting real-time and near-real-time use cases
• Establish data modeling standards, governance practices, and access patterns across the organization
• Drive improvements in data observability, monitoring, and incident response
• Partner with DevOps, product, and business teams to translate data needs into scalable technical solutions
• Lead complex initiatives such as data correlation across systems, unified event models, and cross-platform insights
• Identify and resolve bottlenecks, scaling challenges, and data quality issues
• Mentor engineers and elevate data engineering practices across the organization

Who You Are

No job is too small. You recognize that the real work happens in the restaurants, and everything we do should support their success. You stay humble, roll up your sleeves, and always look for ways to help. You learn from others and contribute wherever you can.

You care deeply about doing great work and driving results. You’re curious, ask questions, and seek out opportunities to improve. You don’t just point out problems—you bring solutions, ideas, and perspectives that move the team forward.

You take full responsibility for your work and see things through to completion. You aren’t afraid to fail because you know that failure is a part of learning and growth. You take action, move fast, and keep pushing forward.

You lead with empathy, respect, and emotional intelligence. You collaborate effectively, fostering a culture of trust and constructive feedback. You understand the importance of teamwork and ensure that your actions build others up rather than break them down.

You push yourself and others to be better. You embrace healthy conflict, knowing that great ideas and strong teams emerge from honest, constructive conversations. You believe that leaders create leaders and are committed to fostering a culture of growth, challenge, and continuous improvement.

Benefits

FLAVOR PERKS:

• Unlimited paid time off for exempt employees
• One paid volunteer day of your choice
• Competitive bonus structure for eligible roles
• Team member stock purchase plan
• Health savings or flexible spending account options
• 401k – (dollar for dollar on the first 3% and then 50 cents on the dollar for the next 2% for team member contributions up to 5% of eligible compensation)
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits
• Basic life and AD&D insurance provided
• Pet insurance
• Education Assistance
• Wellness reimbursement program
• Paid maternity and paternity leave

Fun Is The Best Flavor

• Lunch provided every Tuesday and Thursday in office
• Discount on Wingstop gift cards
• Onsite game room

Wingstop provides equal opportunities for everyone that works for us and everyone that applies to join our team, without regard to sex or gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, any service, past, present, or future, in the uniformed services of the United States (military or veteran status), or any other consideration protected by federal, state, or local law.