Staff Software Engineer - Data Acquisition

WEX, Inc.; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 141,000 - 173,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental and vision insurance

Retirement savings plan

Paid time off

Health savings account

Flexible spending accounts

Life insurance

Disability insurance

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

WEX, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to own the technical direction of core data acquisition capabilities. This role remains hands-on while guiding architecture, building reusable ingestion services, and mentoring engineers across teams.

You will work on batch, CDC, and event-driven ingestion, focusing on data quality, security, and cost while supporting a data platform transformation that powers analytics and product intelligence across business domains.

Qualifications

• B.Sc. in Computer Science or related technical field; M.Sc. a plus but not required.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience delivering production distributed systems or data platforms and leading across teams.
• Strong programming skills in Python, Java, Scala or similar languages.
• Experience with data integration and ingestion pipelines delivering reliable downstream data.
• Solid grasp of engineering fundamentals: version control, modular design, testing, performance tuning.
• Experience designing and operating production integrations handling schema evolution, failure recovery, observability, and secure access.
• Ability to lead architecture decisions, explain tradeoffs, manage dependencies, and drive production adoption.
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools for design, coding, testing, or documentation.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain high-performance data acquisition pipelines across various systems and vendors.
• Lead design and delivery of a modular ingestion platform with reusable connectors and configuration-driven onboarding.
• Add schema validation, completeness checks, reconciliation, duplicate prevention, and audit logging to ingestion components.
• Support safe retries, replay, backfills, and schema evolution to recover from failures without data loss or duplication.
• Design batch, CDC, and streaming ingestion patterns meeting freshness, throughput, and recovery requirements.
• Ensure traceability, lineage, and security through integration with governance systems.
• Lead design reviews, maintain specifications, and mentor engineers in reusable platform design.
• Establish automated testing and CI/CD for ingestion code, connectors, and infrastructure.

Skills

Python

Java/Scala

Distributed systems

Data ingestion pipelines

Observability

Architecture decisions

CI/CD

AI-assisted engineering tools

Education

B.Sc. in Computer Science

M.Sc. a plus

Tools

AI-assisted engineering tools

Job description

This is a remote position; however, the candidate must reside within 30 miles of one of the following locations: Portland, ME; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; San Francisco Bay Area, CA; and Seattle/WA.

About the Role

The Data Acquisition Team is the entry point to WEX's Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) platform-responsible for ingesting, validating, and orchestrating raw data from dozens of internal systems and third-party providers.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will own the technical direction and delivery of core data acquisition platform capabilities. You will remain hands-on while leading architecture decisions, developing reusable ingestion services, and guiding engineers across teams. Your work will support batch, change data capture (CDC), and event-driven ingestion, with clear expectations for data quality, reliability, security, and cost.

WEX is undergoing a data platform transformation-and this team builds the foundation. Every pipeline you create contributes directly to powering analytics, automation, and product intelligence across all business domains.

If you're passionate about scaling data platforms from the ground up, this is your chance to help shape how WEX ingests and leverages its most valuable asset: data.

What You'll Do

• Build and maintain high-performance data acquisition pipelines that integrate with a variety of systems across WEX and third-party vendors.
• Lead the design and delivery of a modular ingestion platform with reusable connectors and configuration-driven onboarding. Establish metadata and configuration patterns that reduce source-specific development and support Data Acquisition as a Service.
• Build schema validation, completeness checks, reconciliation, duplicate prevention, and audit logging into shared ingestion components.
• Support safe retries, replay, backfills, and schema evolution so failures can be recovered without losing or incorrectly duplicating data.
• Design batch, CDC, and streaming ingestion patterns that meet agreed freshness, throughput, and recovery requirements. Evaluate performance, source-system impact, and operating cost when selecting and extending ingestion technologies.
• Ensure traceability, lineage, and security through integration with control plane and governance systems.
• Lead design and code reviews, maintain technical specifications and architectural decisions, and mentor engineers in reusable platform design.
• Establish automated testing and CI/CD practices for ingestion code, connector configuration, and infrastructure, with validation before production deployment.
• Partner with the established production support process on complex escalations, root-cause analysis, and preventive engineering improvements.

What You Bring

Required:

• B.Sc. in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field; M.Sc. a plus but not required.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including delivery of production distributed systems or data platforms and demonstrated technical leadership across team boundaries.
• Strong programming skills in Python, Java, Scala, or another systems-focused language.
• Experience with data integration and ingestion pipelines-you understand what it means to bring data in from source systems, transform it, and deliver it reliably downstream.
• Solid grasp of engineering fundamentals, including version control, modular design, testing, and performance tuning.
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating production integrations that handle schema evolution, failure recovery, observability, and secure access.
• Ability to lead architecture decisions, explain engineering tradeoffs, resolve dependencies across teams, and guide implementation through production adoption.
• Practical experience using AI-assisted engineering tools for design, coding, testing, or documentation, with validation of generated outputs for correctness, security, and maintainability.
• A collaborative mindset-comfortable working across domains, products, and infrastructure layers.
• A strong sense of ownership and accountability-you care deeply about building systems that last.

Preferred:

• Experience building reusable connectors, metadata-driven ingestion services, or configuration-driven onboarding capabilities.

What Success Looks Like

During your first year, you will work with engineering and product leadership to establish baselines and agree on outcomes such as:

• Reducing onboarding lead time and manual effort through shared connectors and configuration-driven patterns.
• Increasing adoption of reusable ingestion capabilities across sources and teams.
• Meeting agreed completeness and freshness criteria, with reliable reconciliation and recovery.
• Improving deployment quality and reducing recurring failures through automated testing and actionable observability.

The base pay range represents the anticipated low and high end of the pay range for this position. Actual pay rates will vary and will be based on various factors, such as your qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. Base pay is one component of WEX's total compensation package. Most sales positions are eligible for commission under the terms of an applicable plan. Non-sales roles are typically eligible for a quarterly or annual bonus based on their role and applicable plan. WEX's comprehensive and market competitive benefits are designed to support your personal and professional well-being.

• Benefits include health, dental and vision insurances, retirement savings plan, paid time off, health savings account, flexible spending accounts, life insurance, disability insurance, tuition reimbursement, and more.

Pay Range: $140,600.00 - $173,100.00