Sr. Staff Systems Engineer

About Us

Fivetran and dbt Labs are bringing together two industry-leading companies with a shared mission: helping organizations unlock the full value of their data. Together, we’re delivering the data infrastructure layer that helps organizations move, transform, and trust their data — from the moment data moves, through every transformation, to the context teams and AI systems rely on. Fivetran helps organizations automate data movement across the systems, clouds, engines, and tools they rely on. dbt Labs pioneered analytics engineering, helping teams transform data into reliable, governed insights. Together, we support thousands of organizations as they build a trusted foundation for analytics, AI, and better business decisions. As we bring our teams and technology together, we’re building on the strengths of both companies while continuing to deliver the products and experiences our customers know and trust. It’s an exciting time to join us: we’re creating a company with the scale, talent, and technology to help more organizations put their data to work with greater speed, confidence, and impact. During this transition period, you may see references to both Fivetran and dbt Labs throughout our recruiting process as we integrate our teams, systems, and career sites.

About the Role

Fivetran + dbt Labs is building data pipelines to power the modern data stack for thousands of companies. We’re looking for a Senior Staff Systems Engineer, Data and Integrations to join our Systems Engineering team and set the technical direction for the data that runs Fivetran's business. In this role, you will own the data architecture behind our marketing, sales, billing, and product operations: the canonical data models, the contracts between systems, and the pipelines and transformations that move data reliably between them. You will lead our largest and most consequential data initiatives, such as system migrations, org consolidations, and re-platforming of core integrations, from design through validation and cutover.

This position sits at the crossroads of data engineering, data modeling, and business process. You will partner closely with our Systems, Analytics, and Engineering teams, as well as Marketing, Revenue Operations, Accounting, Product Operations, and other business partner teams, and you will mentor the engineers who build within the standards you set.

This is a full-time position based out of our Oakland, California office.

Technologies You’ll Use

Our core systems are Salesforce, Netsuite, Coupa, Workday, and Zendesk, with BigQuery as our data warehouse. Our current integration stack includes Celigo and Fivetran itself. You should be an expert in SQL and strong in a general purpose programming language such as Python or TypeScript, and comfortable evaluating and adopting new tools when necessary.

A data engineering background is required, with expertise in data modeling, ETL/ELT development, data quality testing, and data validation at scale. Experience with dbt or a similar transformation framework, and with API-based and event-driven integration patterns, is preferred. Help us bring established data engineering practices to internal business systems, and define what those practices should be here.

What You’ll Do

Data Architecture and Standards

• Own the canonical data models for Fivetran's marketing, sales, billing, and product operations integrations, and define how business concepts map to data across our core systems.
• Define team-wide standards for data modeling, data quality, testing, governance, and documentation, and drive their adoption across Systems Engineering and partner teams.
• Contribute to the design of integration architecture, establishing guidance for when to use batch, real-time, and event-driven data movement.

Delivery of Complex Initiatives

• Lead the design and execution of our most complex data initiatives, including bulk migrations, system consolidations, and re-implementation of core integrations, from target-state design through validation, cutover, and stabilization.
• Build, review, and ship the SQL and Python transformations and pipelines behind these initiatives, setting the bar for code quality on the team.
• Design the validation and reconciliation approach for migrations and pipeline changes, and sign off with stakeholders that record counts, values, and business rules reconcile.

Reliability and Observability

• Design the monitoring, alerting, and data quality framework that gives end-to-end visibility into data freshness and accuracy across systems, and define the KPIs used to measure integration and data health.
• Lead root cause analysis on the most complex cross-system data issues, and drive the systemic fixes that prevent recurrence.

Business Partnership Technical Leadership

• Translate ambiguous requirements from cross-functional business partners into data models and technical designs, and drive alignment across teams with competing priorities.
• Serve as the technical lead and subject matter expert for business data within the Systems Engineering team.
• Mentor other engineers and review their designs and code, raising the team's proficiency in data modeling, testing, and pipeline design.
• Write and maintain design documents and data flow documentation for current and target state, so decisions are legible to the team and to partners.

Skills We’re Looking For

• 10+ years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics Engineering, or a similar role, with a deep focus on modeling and transforming business data and a track record of technical leadership on complex, multi-team initiatives.
• Expert SQL proficiency, including complex transformations, performance tuning, and large-scale data reconciliation.
• Strong proficiency in a general purpose programming language such as Python or TypeScript, with experience building production-grade, tested data pipelines.
• Hands-on experience with business systems data models such as those for Salesforce, NetSuite, Coupa, Workday, or Zendesk, including a data migration, org merge, or major re-implementation.
• Demonstrated experience designing and delivering large-scale ETL/ELT solutions and the data quality, validation, and governance frameworks around them.
• Ability to evaluate trade-offs between short-term delivery and long-term data architecture health, and to communicate those decisions clearly.
• Ability to lead through influence, driving alignment across technical and non-technical stakeholders without direct authority.

Bonus Skills

• Experience with dbt or a similar transformation framework.
• Hands-on experience with iPaaS platforms such as Celigo, Workato, or Boomi, and with reverse ETL tools, including experience choosing between them.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS or GCP, infrastructure as code, and CI/CD for data pipelines.
• Familiarity with AI/ML capabilities to augment data quality, matching, and automation.

By stepping into this role, you will define how Fivetran's + dbt Labs business data is modeled, governed, and moved, and lead the initiatives that make it scale.

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