Senior Data Engineer

Robots & Pencils designs AI systems for real people and enterprise workflows. The company is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to design, build, and operate scalable data pipelines and platforms supporting analytics, AI, and product work, while collaborating cross-functionally and contributing to data architecture and governance decisions.

Responsibilities:

• Design and implement scalable data pipelines, taking ownership of features end-to-end
• Build and manage data warehouses and data lakes
• Optimize data processing workflows and integrate data from multiple systems
• Implement data modeling and schema design that supports analytics and downstream use
• Implement data validation and monitoring to ensure data quality, reliability, and availability
• Design and build data pipelines for production AI/ML systems, including embeddings, vector stores, RAG data preparation, feature stores, and training/inference data flows
• Bring an AI-forward coding mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude, Cursor, and other modern AI assistants to ship higher-quality work at pace
• Collaborate closely with analytics, AI, and product teams to align data work with broader product and business goals
• Communicate technical tradeoffs and decisions clearly across functions, translating data architecture and constraints into terms others can act on
• Participate actively in code reviews and design discussions, raising concerns and offering constructive feedback
• Contribute to data architecture decisions, bringing thoughtful perspective on tradeoffs and long-term implications
• Take ownership of meaningful pieces of work and follow through end-to-end, including the unglamorous parts of operating data systems
• Support data governance and compliance efforts, helping raise the bar on practices across the team

Requirements:

• 5–7 years of professional data engineering experience
• Strong SQL and Python or Scala skills
• Working knowledge of cloud data platforms and enterprise data warehousing
• Hands-on experience with ETL/ELT frameworks and pipeline orchestration
• Experience with streaming platforms and real-time data processing
• Strong data modeling skills, including warehouse and lake schema design and data transformation
• Working knowledge of distributed systems
• Experience with data validation, quality, and observability
• Experience with CI/CD for data systems and container orchestration
• Experience building data pipelines for production AI/ML systems, including embeddings, vector stores, RAG data preparation, feature stores, and training/inference data flows
• Demonstrable, day-to-day usage of AI-forward coding tools such as Claude and Cursor
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate ambiguous technical challenges with sound judgment
• Exposure to data mesh, data fabric, MLOps, or BI tool integration is a plus