Senior Forward Deployed Data Engineer

Senior Forward Deployed Data Engineer

Akkio is the AI workflows platform that automates every workflow across the campaign lifecycle, helping media agencies and data providers activate their data and expertise at scale to deliver better campaigns faster.

Founded in 2019, Akkio combines state-of-the-art ML technology with a simple, intuitive interface to ensure agencies can easily infuse data into every decision across the campaign lifecycle to enhance client outcomes. With recent Series A funding of $15M, we're rapidly expanding our operations to meet growing demand from major media companies.

The Opportunity

As a Senior Forward Deployed Data Engineer at Akkio, you will work directly with our media agency customers, embedded in their environments to solve their most pressing data challenges. You'll own end-to-end technical delivery of customer implementations, building bespoke data pipelines and integrations that unlock the full power of Akkio's AI platform for each client's unique needs. As a customer liaison, you will serve as the technical bridge between their teams and ours. The ideal candidate is an excellent communicator with an intuitive understanding of customer requirements, expertise in both SQL and Python, and ability to work across both application and database technologies.

This role requires regular travel to customer sites to work face-to-face with media agencies who value a hands-on partnership. Your insights from the field will directly shape Akkio's product direction and help define how the media industry leverages AI. This is a unique opportunity to join a well-funded, early-stage AI startup and shape the future of AI-powered marketing analytics while working with a talented team.

What You'll Do

• Embed directly with media agency customers to understand their data infrastructure, workflows, and business objectives
• Own end-to-end technical delivery of customer implementations from initial scoping through production deployment and ongoing optimization
• Design and build custom data pipelines, integrations, and transformations that connect customer data sources to Akkio's AI platform
• Take full ownership of complex data engineering projects from planning to deployment
• Implement security and compliance measures to protect sensitive client data
• Build and maintain production data infrastructure with proper monitoring, alerting, and documentation Feed learnings from customer deployments back to the product team to influence platform roadmap and feature development
• Establish trusted advisor relationships with customer technical and business stakeholders
• Navigate diverse technical environments and adapt solutions to each customer's existing data infrastructure
• Travel regularly to customer sites for onboarding, implementation sprints, and strategic planning sessions
• Mentor junior engineers and establish data engineering best practices
• Communicate project milestones and progress clearly to stakeholders

Who You Are

• 5+ years of experience as a data engineer with proven ability to deliver complex projects in customer-facing or consulting environments
• Strong SQL skills and experience with at least one large cloud database (especially Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks)
• Strong data modeling skills, including when to normalize vs denormalize data and understanding of various schema design patterns.
• Expert in Python for production data pipelines, with experience using modern orchestration tools like dbt or Airflow
• Experience building large scale backend services in Python
• Excellent communication skills. Equally comfortable presenting to C-level executives and debugging code with engineers
• Excited by customer-facing work and energized by seeing your solutions drive real business impact
• Skilled at prompting and working with AI systems for data tasks, leveraging LLMs for data transformation, cleaning, schema mapping, and analysis
• Strong bias to execution coupled with high engineering standards and attention to detail
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent practical experience)

Bonus Points:

• Strong experience with large language models (LLMs) and their applications in data analytics
• Experienced at integrating AI tools into data workflows to accelerate delivery and improve data quality
• Knowledge of data visualization and analytics tools
• Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Understanding of security best practices for handling sensitive data
• Previous startup experience, particularly in early-stage companies

Why You'll Love Working Here

Join Akkio and help transform how media companies leverage AI in marketing and advertising. You'll be at the forefront of applying AI technologies to solve real business problems in a rapidly evolving industry. AI will transform every industry – but only when it's accessible to everyone, not just data scientists.

You'll have a direct impact on product direction and company growth while working with major clients in the media space. This is a rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a well-funded AI startup where your vision directly shapes how thousands of marketing professionals interact with AI technology.

Our culture is built around shared wins, so success drives large career, financial, and personal growth. We offer competitive compensation, including substantial equity grants, flexible work arrangements, comprehensive healthcare benefits, and professional development opportunities.

Additional Information

• Location: Remote-first company with no central office location. This position is fully remote.
• Compensation: Competitive salary range depending on experience, plus substantial equity grants
• Benefits: Health, dental, and vision insurance; 401(k) plan; generous PTO policy
• Authorization: Must be authorized to work in the US

Akkio is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills, and we believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.