Staff Data Engineer , Enteprise Data

About the role

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders focused on building automotive technology for electric vehicles, including operating systems, zonal controllers, cloud and connectivity solutions. The Enterprise Data team is creating a trusted enterprise data and AI platform that unifies information across People, Finance, Privacy, and Legal, enabling leaders to explore certified data, understand context behind metrics, and ask complex business questions using natural language. The team owns data foundations, semantic models, AI capabilities, and analytical experiences. As a Staff Data Engineer, you will provide technical leadership for this platform, designing and building trusted data products, establishing architecture and engineering standards, and solving complex problems across ingestion, transformation, semantic modeling, governance, and AI-powered analytics while remaining hands‑on and partnering with senior leaders.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable ELT pipelines and semantic models using dbt, SQL, and Python on Databricks.
• Own the end‑to‑end data lifecycle—including ingestion, transformation, governance, certification, semantic modeling, data quality, observability, and lineage—to deliver enterprise‑grade certified datasets that power executive decision‑making.
• Architect and contribute to a unified, React‑based executive analytics portal, transitioning the C‑suite experience from fragmented dashboards to a centralized, application‑driven environment with embedded analytics, AI‑assisted insights, and trusted enterprise access.
• Design and deploy conversational AI agents over enterprise data products by building metadata and semantic frameworks, implementing RAG pipelines and reasoning engines, and establishing guardrails for safe, compliant, and context‑aware AI interactions with certified data.
• Serve as the primary technical partner to senior leaders across Finance, People, Privacy, and Legal, translating strategic priorities into scalable data products, aligning diverse stakeholders, and influencing executive analytics strategy.
• Define and uphold end‑to‑end engineering standards across the Enterprise Insights domain, including scalable architecture, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), CI/CD, version control best practices, operational SLAs, and a culture rooted in AI‑native design, disciplined experimentation, and operational excellence.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in Data or Software Engineering with expert‑level SQL and Python skills, including advanced query design, performance tuning, data manipulation, and scalable automation.
• Strong system design and architecture expertise, with a proven ability to build efficient, maintainable, and scalable data systems.
• Deep proficiency with dbt and modern cloud data platforms (Databricks preferred), including semantic layer modeling, business logic abstraction, and implementation of robust data quality, governance, and lineage frameworks.
• Hands‑on experience implementing GenAI systems, LLM agents, or RAG architectures, with strong knowledge of context engineering, reliability frameworks, guardrails, and evaluation methodologies for enterprise AI solutions.
• Proven track record of building production‑grade interactive applications using Streamlit or React to solve complex business problems, along with mastery of at least one major BI tool (Tableau, Qlik, Power BI, Hex). Strong data storytelling skills with the ability to design impactful visualizations and communicate insights that influence executive leadership.
• Expertise in collaborative software development practices, including testing frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, and version control (Git/GitLab/GitHub). Strong communication and cross‑functional collaboration skills, with the ability to partner effectively across technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguity into structured roadmaps, influence executive stakeholders, and lead or mentor engineers while fostering high standards of technical and operational excellence.
• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.

Pay

Compensation range: $167,400 – $230,250 base salary. Eligible for annual company performance bonus program (discretionary, not guaranteed) and equity in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), subject to board approval and vesting requirements.

Benefits

Comprehensive benefits package supporting health, wellbeing, and financial future for full‑time employees, including health coverage, retirement savings, time off, and family planning programs. Offerings vary by country.