Staff Software Engineer, Data

About the role

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

Responsibilities

• 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

Requirements

• 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

Qualifications

• 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

Skills

• Backend, infrastructure, or data engineering roles
• Event-time-based stream processing or streaming SQL systems
• Relational and time-series databases
• Large-scale distributed systems or low-latency backend services
• DevOps and cloud infrastructure tools
• Telemetry data from hardware systems
• Columnar storage formats like Apache Arrow and Parquet

Benefits

• Flexible remote work options
• Competitive salary range: $200,000 - $250,000 per year
• Equity and benefits package

Pay

• $200,000 - $250,000 per year

Schedule

• Tight-knit team of world-class engineers building foundational systems for next-gen machines
• Technologies used 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.

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.