Data Engineer - Samba Platform

Data Engineer

Samba is a media intelligence company. We know what the world is watching, reading, and thinking about — in real time, at scale, across every screen. Our data exists with the consent of over a billion people, organized into the most complete picture of consumer attention ever built. The biggest brands in the world use that picture to make smarter decisions. We think it's the most interesting data asset on the planet, because it's the most culturally relevant.

What You'll Do

• Build scalable data product architecture, capable of supporting both internal and external data consumers
• Responsible for modernizing our data frameworks and integrations with Databricks and BigQuery
• Upgrade and reduce toil for developers on Apache Airflow
• Develop and optimize data transformations using Apache Spark (PySpark/Scala)
• Build procedures and guidelines to help teams operate with data
• Identify bottlenecks in our development lifecycle and find solutions to improve them
• Drive innovation throughout the tech org by evangelizing and educating teams on best practices and new technologies
• Work directly with our data teams and FinOps teams to drive efforts that span across teams
• Implement data governance, access control, and auditing using Databricks Unity Catalog
• Build and integrate automated, reusable data validation suites using data quality frameworks (Great Expectations or similar)Implement monitoring and anomaly detection systems for data quality, reliability and performance
• Develop and manage REST APIs to support secure data access, automation, and integration
• Collaborate with data scientists, analysts, and software engineers to deliver governed, reusable data assets
• Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting for data workflows
• Optimize cost and performance of cloud-based data infrastructure

Who You Are

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience)
• 5+ years of experience in data engineering or a related role
• Strong hands-on experience with Databricks, Apache Spark and BigQuery or Snowflake
• Proven experience with Modern table formats such as Delta Lake and Iceberg
• A deep understanding of the data lifecycle and how teams operate with data
• Hands-on experience implementing data governance and metadata management using Databricks Unity Catalog
• Experience managing and extending Apache Airflow (custom operators, plugins, infrastructure)
• Experience with Kubernetes
• Solid experience with AWS cloud services, especially S3 and data-related services
• Experience with data validation and data quality principles and working with SLA systems
• Proficiency in Python and SQLExperience with data modeling, data lakes, and lakehouse architectures and a strong understanding of distributed systems and big data processing
• Preferred Qualifications
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines for data platforms
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments
• AWS, Databricks, or cloud data certifications
• Experience working with data clean room environments, including implementation or collaboration within Snowflake, Databricks, or BigQuery ecosystems
• Experience with streaming data pipelines (Kafka, Flink)

$135,000 - $180,000 a year

Samba is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We strive to empower connection with one another, reflect the communities we serve, and tackle meaningful projects that make a real impact.

Samba may collect personal information directly from you, as a job applicant, Samba may also receive personal information from third parties, for example, in connection with a background, employment or reference check, in accordance with the applicable law. For further details, please see Samba's Applicant Privacy Policy . For residents of the EU, Samba Inc. is the data controller.