Staff Software Engineer, Data

Sift Stack, Inc.; California (MO); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Relocation assistance

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Sift is hiring for a senior backend/data engineer to design a scalable platform that ingests millions of hardware sensor data points per second and supports real-time analytics. You will work with Go, Rust, or Python and modern data stacks like PostgreSQL, Kafka, and Flink.

Join a team shaping data architecture and engineering culture, with hybrid work in the US and relocation options to LA or SF for the right candidate. Equity and strong compensation are offered.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field.
• 7+ years of backend, infrastructure, or data engineering experience.
• Hands-on experience with event-time stream processing (Flink/Kafka Streams/Beam) or similar.
• Proficiency with relational and time-series databases (PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB/ Pinot).
• Experience with large-scale distributed systems or low-latency backends (Go/Rust/Python).
• Familiarity with cloud-native tools (Kubernetes, Prometheus, ArgoCD, Terraform).
• Strong communication and collaborative problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and build a horizontally scalable platform for ingesting millions of hardware sensor data points per second.
• Develop durable, efficient database solutions for real-time reads and analytics workloads.
• Advance data architecture with streaming and storage innovations, including cloud-native and diskless designs.
• Help define engineering culture, standards, and processes.
• Collaborate on architecture, design reviews, and scaling strategies.

Skills

Backend engineering

Infrastructure design

Data streaming

SQL/DBs

Go/Rust/Python

DevOps/Cloud

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or STEM

Tools

Kubernetes

Prometheus

ArgoCD

Terraform

PostgreSQL

Kafka

Apache Flink

Job description

About Sift

Sift is the data infrastructure platform for hardware engineering teams. Sift turns high-frequency telemetry into engineering insights for mission-critical systems. Teams use Sift to build and operate rockets, satellites, autonomous vehicles, energy systems, defense platforms, and more.

Founded by former SpaceX engineers who built the tools behind Dragon and Starlink, Sift is building the data infrastructure to herald the AI era for physical systems.

In This Role, You’ll:

• Design and build a horizontally scalable platform for ingesting millions of hardware sensor data points per second

• Develop durable, efficient database solutions to support real-time reads and large-scale analytics workloads

• Pioneer data architecture by integrating recent innovations in streaming and storage, including cloud-native and diskless designs

• Help define engineering culture, standards, and processes

• Collaborate closely with peers on architecture, design, code reviews, and scaling strategies

The Skillset You’ll Bring:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or another STEM discipline

• 7+ years of experience in backend, infrastructure, or data engineering roles

• Hands-on experience with event-time-based stream processing or streaming SQL systems using tools like Apache Flink, Kafka Streams, Beam, or similar

• Proficiency with relational and time-series databases like PostgreSQL, Druid, Pinot, TimescaleDB, or equivalent

• Experience with large-scale distributed systems or low-latency backend services, ideally written in Go, Rust, or Python

• Familiarity with DevOps and cloud infrastructure tools such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, ArgoCD, and Terraform

• Strong communication skills and a collaborative approach to problem-solving

Bonus Points:

• Familiarity with telemetry data from hardware systems, high-throughput ingest pipelines, or columnar storage formats like Apache Arrow and Parquet

• Experience building resilient, performant systems that scale to billions of records

• Curiosity about new data paradigms and eagerness to evaluate and integrate emerging tools and techniques

Engineering at SIFT:

You’ll join a tight-knit team of world-class engineers building foundational systems for next-gen machines. Technologies you’ll work with may include:

• Frontend & Backend: Go, gRPC, PostgreSQL, Protobuf, React, TypeScript

• Data Infrastructure: Apache Arrow, DataFusion, Flink, Kafka, Parquet, Rust

• Ops & Tooling: AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, GitHub Actions, Prometheus, Argo CD, Grafana, Linux

Location:

Sift's headquarters is in Marina Del Rey, CA (Next to LAX). We collaborate in person twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays, and come together for a full week every two months. We are open to relocating candidates to LA or working from our San Francisco office for the right candidate.

Salary range: $200,000 - $260,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits.

Eligibility:

U.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual such as an asylee or refugee in compliance with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) regulations.