Tech Lead Manager, Data Integration Platform

Chime Financial, Inc; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 199,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Backup child care

Elder care

Pet care

Annual wellness stipend

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Chime Financial, Inc. is seeking a Tech Lead Manager for the Data Integration Platform. You will own and evolve the platform handling ingestion and egress of data across internal systems and external partners, guiding architecture and delivering reliable, scalable pipelines.

You will stay technically engaged while coaching engineers, shaping data contracts, SLAs, and governance. This role emphasizes leadership, security, and AI‑ready data foundations within a lakehouse context.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in high‑scale, reliable software development with data integration focus.
• 3+ years leading engineering teams; hiring and performance management.
• Hands‑on coding and architecture design; production code experience.
• Proven track record scaling platforms and operations for growing data volume.
• Deep experience with ingestion/CDC pipelines, connectors, event streaming, and API/file data exchange.
• Extensive cloud data ecosystems experience (AWS/GCP/Azure).
• Knowledge of data governance, security, and compliance best practices.
• Interest in AI data foundations and data contracts across boundaries.

Responsibilities

• Own strategy and roadmap for the Data Integration Platform, including ingestion pipelines and connectors.
• Remain hands‑on for architecture, reviews, and high‑leverage contributions while coaching others.
• Design scalable, high‑performance integration architecture balancing reliability and cost.
• Build and operate connectors and pipelines across diverse sources/sinks (APIs, streams, files).
• Define data contracts, schemas, SLAs, and governance across producers, layer, and consumers.
• Establish operational practices: on‑call, incident management, postmortems, and SLOs.
• Collaborate with security, risk, compliance, and partner teams on data safety and boundaries.
• Lead and grow a team with clear expectations and engineering excellence.

Skills

Data integration

Leadership

Python

SQL

Cloud AWS/GCP/Azure

Kafka

Flink

Spark

Airflow

Kubernetes

Debezium

Iceberg/Snowflake

Tools

Debezium

Fivetran/Airbyte‑style frameworks

Iceberg

Snowflake

Job description

About the Role

As a Tech Lead Manager on Chime's Data Intelligence Platform, leading the Data Integration Platform team, you will own the group that builds and operates the platform and infrastructure for the ingress and egress of first‑party and third‑party data into and out of Chime's ecosystem. Your team will be responsible for building and operating reliable, scalable, and secure integration pipelines and connectors that move data between Chime's internal systems and external partners, vendors, and data providers, powering analytics, experimentation, and AI‑driven product experiences across Chime.

You'll partner closely with other Data Intelligence Platform squads as well as Product Engineering, Security, and Analytics teams to define integration patterns, data contracts, and SLAs that govern how data enters and leaves Chime, supporting both high‑scale batch workloads and latency‑sensitive real‑time flows. Your leadership will directly impact how Chime ingests, exchanges, and delivers data - enabling trusted, self‑serve, AI‑ready data for Chimers across the company.

Chime's data integration platform is entering its next phase. As our data ecosystem grows, we have a significant opportunity to simplify and standardize how data moves across streaming, batch, and third‑party integrations. You will lead the evolution toward a unified, secure, and reliable data conveyance platform while helping advance Chime's lakehouse architecture.

This is a manager‑first, hands‑on player‑coach role. Your primary responsibility is leading and developing the team - setting direction and priorities, coaching engineers, and owning delivery and operational health. You will also remain technically engaged through high‑leverage problems: shaping architecture, guiding designs, reviewing critical changes, and writing production code where it unlocks the team's progress.

In this role, you can expect to

• Own the strategy and roadmap for Chime's Data Integration Platform, including ingestion pipelines, connectors, and the infrastructure that moves first‑party and third‑party data into and out of Chime's ecosystem.
• Stay hands‑on through architecture, design and code reviews, and targeted production contributions focused on the highest‑leverage platform problems, while coaching engineers and owning team execution.
• Design and evolve scalable, high‑performance integration architecture that balances reliability, cost, and ease of use for both analytical and in‑product data flows.
• Build and operate reliable connectors and pipelines for diverse sources and sinks across APIs, event streams, file transfers, and change‑data‑capture.
• Ensure performant and secure data movement by defining ingress/egress patterns, throughput and latency targets, schema evolution, and error handling / replay for key data flows.
• Collaborate across the Data Intelligence Platform and partner teams to define clear data contracts, schemas, and SLAs between producers, the integration layer, and consumers including external partners.
• Build tooling and automation for governance and compliance across sources and sinks (e.g., RBAC, PII protection, tokenization, lineage, and auditability), with particular attention to data leaving Chime's boundary, in partnership with Security, Risk, and Compliance.
• Manage and grow a team of engineers, setting clear expectations, providing coaching and feedback, and raising the bar on engineering quality and operational excellence.
• Establish strong operational practices, including on‑call, incident management, postmortems, and SLOs for the integration pipelines and connectors your team owns.
• Stay ahead of industry trends in data integration, streaming, and ingestion/egress tooling, and thoughtfully introduce technologies that improve our platform's capabilities.

To thrive in this role, you

• Have 8+ years of experience in high‑scale, high‑reliability software development, with a focus on platforms, infrastructure, and data integration or data movement systems.
• Have 3+ years of experience managing engineering teams, including hiring, performance management, and developing engineers.
• Bring hands‑on coding ability and a genuine desire to remain technical while leading a team. You are comfortable writing and reviewing production code, particularly where it resolves ambiguity or unlocks the team's progress
• Have a track record of scaling products, platforms, and operations to support rapid growth in data volume, complexity, and criticality.
• Bring deep experience with data integration and movement components, such as ingestion and CDC pipelines, connector frameworks, event streaming, and API‑and file‑based (e.g., SFTP) data exchange alongside the data lakes/lakehouses (e.g., Iceberg) and warehouses (e.g., Snowflake) they feed and drain.
• Have proven expertise in system and data architecture for scalable, secure, and cost‑efficient data platforms, including schema design, data contracts, and schema‑evolution strategies across system boundaries.
• Are comfortable working with modern data and infrastructure technologies, such as Kafka, Flink, Spark, Airflow, Kubernetes, and connector/ingestion tooling (e.g., Debezium, Fivetran/Airbyte‑style frameworks).
• Are hands‑on proficient in Python (preferred) or a comparable language (e.g., Java, Scala), able to write, review, and ship production‑quality code, and are fluent in SQL and performance tuning for analytical workloads.
• Have extensive experience in cloud‑based data ecosystems, such as AWS (S3, DynamoDB, Redshift, Snowflake, EMR), GCP (BigQuery, Dataflow), or Azure equivalents.
• Understand data governance, security, and compliance best practices (e.g., RBAC, PII handling, auditability) especially for third‑party data sharing and data crossing Chime's trust boundary and have helped design systems that meet regulatory and internal standards.
• Are deeply interested in the transformative potential of advanced AI systems and how to build AI‑ready data foundations (metadata, lineage, semantic layers, and reliable data pipelines that feed them).
• Excel at building strong relationships with stakeholders across engineering, product, analytics, security, and finance, as well as external partners and vendors, and can translate between technical and business contexts.
• Demonstrate strong people leadership, with a track record of building a culture of belonging and engineering excellence.

#LI-DA1 #LI-Onsite

Below is the base salary offered for this role and level of experience. Full‑time employees may also be eligible for bonus(es), competitive equity, and benefits. For commissioned roles, the base salary listed in this job description does not include incentive/variable pay. The actual base salary offered may be higher, depending on your location, skills, qualifications, and experience.

$199,000-$275,000 USD

A little about us

At Chime, we believe that everyone can achieve financial progress. We created Chime—a financial technology company, not a bank*—on the premise that core banking services should be helpful, easy, and free. Through our user‑friendly tools and intuitive platforms, we empower our members to take control of their finances and work towards their goals. Whether it's starting a savings account, purchasing a first car or home, launching a business, or pursuing higher education, we're proud to have helped millions unlock their financial potential.

We're a team of problem solvers, dreamers, and builders with one shared obsession: our members. From day one, Chimers have worked tirelessly to out‑hustle and out‑execute competitors to bring our mission to life. Their grit and determination inspire us to work harder every day to deliver the very best experience possible. We each bring an owner's mindset to our work, refusing to be outdone and holding ourselves accountable to meet and exceed the highest bars for our teams, our company, and our members.

We believe in being bold, dreaming big, and taking risks, while also working together, embracing our diverse perspectives, and giving each other honest feedback. Our culture remains deeply entrepreneurial, encouraging every Chimer to see themselves as stewards of our mission to help everyday Americans unlock their financial progress.

We know that to achieve our mission, we must earn and keep people's trust - so we hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity in everything we do. These aren't just words in a wall - our values are embedded in every aspect of our business, serving as a north star that guides us as we work to help millions achieve their financial potential.

Because if we don't - who will?

*Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by The Bancorp Bank, N.A. or Stride Bank, N.A., Members FDIC.

What we offer for our full‑time, regular employees

• Our in‑office work policy is designed to keep you connected - with four days a week in the office and Fridays from home for those near one of our offices, plus team and company‑wide events depending on location. Whether you're coming in regularly or are part of our fully remote program, you'll stay engaged with your work and teammates.
• Benefits that support your work and life, including backup child, elder, and pet care and subsidized commuter benefits for eligible employees.
• Comprehensive health, financial, and wellbeing benefits designed to support you at every stage of life.
• Generous vacation policy and company‑wide paid days off
• 1% of your time off to support local community organizations of your choice
• Annual wellness stipend to use towards eligible wellness related expenses
• Up to 22 weeks of paid parental leave for birthing parents and 12 weeks of paid parental leave for non‑birthing parents
• Access to family planning reimbursement
• A challenging and fulfilling opportunity to join one of the most experienced teams in FinTech and help millions unlock financial progress.

We know that great work can't be done without a diverse team and inclusive environment. That’s why we specifically look for individuals of varying strengths, skills, backgrounds, and ideas to join our team. We believe this gives us a competitive advantage to better serve our members and helps us all grow as Chimers and individuals.

Chime is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer