Staff Engineer, Data Platform

Unity Technologies SF; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 301,000; Full time

Job summary

Unity Technologies SF is seeking a Staff Engineer, Data Platform to design and scale data infrastructure supporting our Ads business and Unity Commons. You will operate at the intersection of large-scale distributed systems, data engineering, and platform architecture, delivering trusted data flows across Unity's advertising ecosystem.

This senior IC role demands technical leadership across teams, guiding platform evolution, tooling, and standards while enabling multiple teams to adopt the

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems, backend services, or data platforms in production environments.
• Strong backend and systems engineering skills, including service design, API design, system integration, debugging, and production operations.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including scalability, reliability, fault tolerance, performance, consistency, and operational trade-offs.
• Experience building shared platforms, internal systems, or self-service infrastructure that supports multiple engineering teams.
• Ability to quickly understand complex existing systems, identify leverage points, and lead pragmatic improvements.

Responsibilities

• Own the design, build, and evolution of scalable platform services, backend systems, and self-service tooling used across Unity.
• Work across a broad technical surface area, including distributed systems, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, observability, reliability, automation, and developer experience.
• Partner with engineering teams across Ads, infrastructure, data, and product to identify shared needs and deliver reusable, high-leverage solutions.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership for ambiguous, cross-functional initiatives that span multiple systems and teams.
• Contribute to platform patterns, technical standards, and engineering best practices that improve consistency and quality across the organization.

Skills

Distributed systems

Backend engineering

API design

System integration

Observability

Production operations

Tools

Flink

Paimon

Kafka

Spark

Kubernetes

ArgoCD

Terraform

Job description

The opportunity

Unity is looking for a Staff Engineer, Data Platform to help build and scale the data infrastructure powering our Ads business and Unity Commons, our internal platform that supports teams across Unity.

In this role, you will work at the intersection of large-scale distributed systems, data engineering, and platform architecture. You will own and evolve critical data platform capabilities that enable high-throughput, reliable, and trusted data flows across Unity's advertising ecosystem, while also supporting common internal services used broadly across the company.

This is a senior individual-contributor role for an engineer who thrives on solving complex platform problems, raising the technical bar, and building systems that serve many teams at scale. You will partner closely with engineers, product managers, data scientists, infrastructure teams, and downstream data consumers to deliver platforms that are resilient, extensible, and easy to adopt.

What you'll be doing

• Own the design, build, and evolution of scalable platform services, backend systems, and self-service tooling used across Unity.
• Work across a broad technical surface area, including distributed systems, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, observability, reliability, automation, and developer experience.
• Partner with engineering teams across Ads, infrastructure, data, and product to identify shared needs and deliver reusable, high-leverage solutions.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership for ambiguous, cross-functional initiatives that span multiple systems and teams.
• Contribute to platform patterns, technical standards, and engineering best practices that improve consistency and quality across the organization.

What we're looking for

• Extensive experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems, backend services, or data platforms in production environments.
• Strong backend and systems engineering skills, including service design, API design, system integration, debugging, and production operations.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including scalability, reliability, fault tolerance, performance, consistency, and operational trade-offs.
• Experience building shared platforms, internal systems, or self-service infrastructure that supports multiple engineering teams.
• Ability to quickly understand complex existing systems, identify leverage points, and lead pragmatic improvements.

You might also have

• Experience supporting data-intensive platforms or systems, including pipelines, streaming systems, storage layers, or analytics infrastructure.
• Hands-on exposure to technologies such as Apache Flink, Apache Paimon, Kafka, Spark, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, or Terraform.
• Experience in advertising technology, gaming, monetization, marketplaces, or high-scale consumer platforms.

Base Salary Range

We determine the base salary range for this role based on your primary work location:

• Zone A: $157,800 - $236,800 USD gross
• Zone B: $178,300 - $267,500 USD gross
• Zone C: $200,400 - $300,600 USD gross

This range reflects the anticipated base salary for this position. Beyond base salary, this role may be eligible for equity awards and participation in our company incentive plans (such as annual discretionary bonuses or sales commissions). The final offer amount will depend on several factors, including geographic location and the candidate's relevant experience, professional background, and skill set.

Benefits

At Unity, we want our team members to thrive. We offer a wide range of benefits designed to support well-being and work-life balance.

Please note: Benefits eligibility, specific offerings, and coverage vary based on the country and employment status.

While specific benefits vary, here are some of the ways we strive to take care of our eligible team members globally:

• Comprehensive health, life, and disability insurance
• Commute subsidy
• Employee stock ownership
• Competitive retirement/pension plans
• Generous vacation and personal days
• Support for new parents through leave and family-care programs
• Office food snacks
• Mental Health and Wellbeing programs and support
• Employee Resource Groups
• Global Employee Assistance Program
• Training and development programs
• Volunteering and donation matching program

Life at Unity

Unity [NYSE: U] is the world's leading game engine, powering play for more than 3 billion consumers each month. The top mobile games in the world, the most played PC indie titles, the most innovative ...

Unity is a proud equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment and celebrate our empl