Lead Data Engineer
Windfall
Data Science, Software Engineering
San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 170k-240k / year + Equity
Posted on Sep 2, 2025
Windfall is seeking a Lead Data Engineer to join our core data team. As a Lead Data Engineer on our data team, you will be building out the core data asset that everything else at Windfall is built on top of. Communication and collaboration are at the heart of Windfall, and you will work closely with our product, data science, and other engineering teams. You will personally design and build the pipelines for massive datasets, taking them all the way from inception to exploration to production and customer use.
We’re on a mission to change how organizations perceive and use people data. And we hold true to our core values of: (1) Be an excellent communicator; (2) Operate with transparency; (3) Provide leverage, not optimization; (4) Make a difference every day; and (5) Act with integrity and trust.
Responsibilities:
- Lead the design, development, and optimization of robust and scalable data pipelines to ingest and merge billions of individual entities into Windfall’s core data asset.
- Provide technical guidance and mentorship to other data engineers, fostering a culture of best practices, innovation, and continuous improvement.
- Collaborate closely with data science, product, and other engineering teams to translate business needs into technical requirements and deliver impactful data solutions.
- Work closely with our data science team to enable the effective running of ML models on top of massive data points.
- Architect and build supporting data services and applications to orchestrate, monitor, and ensure the reliability of our data systems.
- Drive the adoption of new technologies and methodologies to enhance our data infrastructure and processes.
Some technology you will use:
- Cloud platform - GCP
- Programming languages - Java, Python, and Kotlin
- Data warehouse & databases - BigQuery, Postgres
- Distributed processing frameworks - Dataflow (Apache Beam) and Apache Spark
- Orchestration - Airflow
Requirements:
- Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- 8+ years of progressive professional data engineering experience, with at least 2-3 years in a technical lead or senior-level role.
- Exceptional understanding and practical application of object-oriented programming principles in a JVM language.
- Demonstrated experience designing, building, and maintaining large-scale, high-performance data systems.
- Experience at a sub-200 person company (or similar fast-paced startup environment).
- Expert SQL knowledge and experience with complex database operations.
- Proven ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Strong problem-solving skills with a track record of simplifying complex challenges into elegant, scalable solutions.
- A strong sense of ownership and responsibility for your work, coupled with excellent collaboration and team alignment skills.
- A pragmatic approach to making trade-offs between quality, complexity, and speed-of-delivery, with a focus on business impact.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Significant experience in a player-coach capacity, mentoring junior engineers, and contributing to team growth.
- Demonstrated success in leading and delivering large-scale data projects from ideation through to production, including architectural decisions.
- Proven experience leading greenfield data initiatives.
- Deep understanding of the underlying principles and trade-offs of databases, data warehouses, and distributed computing frameworks, enabling optimal technology selection and system optimization.
- Extensive working knowledge and hands-on experience with cloud-native data engineering infrastructure (GCP preferred).
Additional Information:
The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across California and Colorado. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. We also offer a comprehensive benefits package, which you can explore on our careers site.
California: Salary range is $190k - $240k + Equity
Colorado: Salary range is $170k - $220k + Equity
About Windfall
Windfall is a people intelligence and AI company that gives go-to-market teams actionable insights. By democratizing access to people data, organizations can intelligently prioritize go-to-market resources to drive greater business outcomes. Powered by best-in-class machine learning and artificial intelligence, Windfall activates insights into workflows that engage the right people for each respective organization. More than 1,500 data-driven organizations use Windfall to power their business. For more information, please visit www.windfall.com.