Staff Data Engineer

Staff Data Engineer

At YouVersion, we build technology that helps people around the world connect with God every day. As a Staff Data Engineer, you'll solve complex, chapter-wide data problems across the YouVersion Family of Apps—designing and implementing scalable data platforms, pipelines, and governance systems that power analytics, decision-making, and trusted metrics at global scale.

You'll provide technical leadership across data initiatives, establish best practices for data quality and reliability, mentor engineers, and partner closely with product, analytics, and engineering leadership to ensure our data ecosystem enables meaningful, mission-driven impact.

YouVersion was created by the local church in 2007 and remains a ministry of Life.Church today. At Life.Church, our mission is simple: to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. We believe technology—and especially trustworthy data—is a powerful tool for stewarding insight, guiding decisions, and helping people engage with Scripture in life-changing ways. At our core, we believe that seeking God daily has the power to transform lives. That belief shapes how we build systems, how we measure impact, and how we care for the people we serve.

Deep mastery in one or more areas from the 'Technical Areas You Excel In' section is expected, along with the ability to provide leadership across the broader data domain.

What You'll Do

• Own the Data Problem Space: Lead the design and implementation of large-scale, chapter-wide data solutions that impact multiple teams, products, and decision-makers.
• Architect Data Platforms: Design scalable, reliable data architectures including ingestion, transformation, storage, and analytics layers with long-term sustainability in mind.
• Set Technical Standards: Establish and uphold best practices for data modeling, pipeline design, testing, monitoring, and documentation across the organization.
• Champion Data Quality & Trust: Drive initiatives focused on data accuracy, completeness, timeliness, consistency, and observability to ensure trusted, decision-ready data.
• Influence Across Chapters: Partner with engineering, product, analytics, and leadership teams to align data strategy with business and ministry goals.
• Resolve Complex Issues: Diagnose and solve the most complex data reliability, performance, and scaling challenges across pipelines and platforms.
• Enable Insight at Scale: Support and evolve event instrumentation, user data processing, and analytical datasets that power insights and experimentation.
• Mentor & Develop: Guide data engineers at all levels, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous learning.
• Drive Governance & Security: Collaborate with architects and stakeholders to advance data governance, privacy, and security practices across the data ecosystem.

What It Takes to Thrive Here

• Deep Data Expertise: Proven ability to design, build, and operate complex data systems at scale.
• Staff-Level Leadership: Ability to influence technical direction beyond your immediate team and lead through impact, not authority.
• Architectural Vision: Strong intuition for data architecture tradeoffs, with experience balancing short-term needs and long-term strategy.
• Strategic Thinking: Comfortable navigating ambiguity, setting direction, and prioritizing high-leverage work.
• Clear Communication: Able to explain complex data concepts to engineers, analysts, and non-technical partners.
• Mission-Driven Mindset: Passion for using data and technology to help people grow spiritually and connect with God.
• Heart for Ministry: View your work as a calling to serve others and advance God's Kingdom.

Technical Areas You Excel In

• Programming: Highly proficient in Python, Go, Java, or similar general-purpose languages used for data systems.
• SQL Expertise: Expert-level SQL skills, including complex queries, performance tuning, and analytical modeling.
• Data Warehousing: Deep experience with warehouse design and modeling principles (e.g., BigQuery, Postgres, MySQL).
• Pipelines & Orchestration: Extensive experience building and operating ETL/ELT pipelines using tools such as Airflow, dbt, Fivetran, Pub/Sub, or similar.
• Streaming & APIs: Strong background in streaming data and API-based integrations.
• Cloud Platforms: Experience designing and running data systems on cloud platforms such as GCP, AWS, or Azure.
• Event Data: Familiarity with user event instrumentation and processing (e.g., Firebase, GA4, or similar systems).
• Data Quality & Observability: Advocate for testing, monitoring, anomaly detection, and automated validation.
• Governance & Security: Partner with stakeholders to uphold standards around data privacy, access, and compliance.
• Documentation & Enablement: Create clear diagrams and documentation to support shared understanding and adoption.

What You Bring

• Experience: 7+ years of hands-on data or software engineering experience delivering impactful, production-grade systems.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data, or a related field.
• Leadership Mindset: A track record of mentoring others and raising the technical bar around you.
• Learning Orientation: Passion for continuous learning and adapting to new technologies.
• Passion for Impact: Excitement about building data systems that support meaningful decisions and spiritual growth at global scale.

Benefits We Offer

• Paid parental leave, including maternity, paternity, and adoption leave.
• Generous employer-paid leave for the use of vacation, sick time, and other qualifying reasons.
• Innovative and comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance that provides team members with useful resources and savings to navigate their holistic health.
• Life insurance policy provided for all staff members at 2x annual salary at no cost. Additional life insurance coverage is available to purchase.
• Short-Term and Long-Term disability is covered at 100% for full-time qualified staff members.
• Comprehensive wellness and mental health benefits allow staff to proactively invest in their physical and emotional health.
• Generous 401(k) retirement plan allowing a team member to have up to 12.5% (including employee contribution, employer match, and employer discretionary contribution) contributed into their account in their first year. It doesn't stop there—the more years on staff, the greater the investment!
• $160 annually in development dollars for team members to invest in their professional growth.
• Casual dress and work environment.
• And much more!

Our Beliefs, Culture, and Commitment to Diversity

At Life.Church, every staff member, and intern is a minister and is expected to engage in the church's ministry fully. We consider ministry readiness and an individual's capacity to represent Life.Church's beliefs as a minister during the selection process for all staff and intern positions. An essential function within every position held by a staff member or intern at Life.Church is to uphold and represent the beliefs of Life.Church. Learn more about what we believe at Life.Church.

While we unite around our mission, we know unity doesn't mean uniformity. Our calling is too great, and our mission is too important not to be intentional about strengthening our team through diversity. We know that diverse perspectives in race, ethnicity, background, age, and gender are essential to reaching the world for Christ. To learn more about how we strengthen our team through diversity, visit our careers page.

All data collected in our application process, from resume collection to application questions, is used for recruitment purposes only.