Senior Data Engineer

Ibotta•Denver, CO

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

Ibotta is seeking a software-focused Sr. Data Engineer to join the Data Platform Organization and contribute to the Data Intelligence Squad. The role focuses on making Ibotta's data AI-ready by working on data contracts, metadata standards, compliance tooling, and pipelines for an AI readiness scoring system. The position will also involve LLM application development and semantic layer work. This is a hybrid role based in Denver, Colorado, requiring three days in the office per week. Candidates must reside in the United States, and relocation assistance is available for those moving to Denver.

Requirements

5+ years of software engineering experience with a focus on data engineering, analytics engineering, or backend development.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex, multi-stakeholder data initiatives from scoping through delivery.
Experience writing technical design documents.
Expertise in Python, SQL, and Databricks.
Experience with medallion architecture (bronze/silver/gold) or similar layered data design patterns.
Independently design and implement semantic layers to ensure AI agents utilize governed, consistent metric definitions.
Experience working in data governance concepts (metadata standards, data ownership, schema enforcement, access control).
Experience keeping data assets clean and well-documented.
Confidence working with schema validation, data freshness monitoring, data observability tooling, or similar quality practices.
Demonstrated ability to evaluate and integrate AI into the solution tech stack, including understanding operational tradeoffs.
Hands-on experience with AI building blocks such as LLM APIs, context engineering, agentic frameworks, and RAG.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis.
All employees are responsible for the secure handling of data in accordance with our security policies, identifying and reporting phishing attempts, as well as reporting security incidents to the proper channels.

Nice To Haves

Proficiency in AI-assisted development platforms (Claude, Copilot, Cursor, etc.) a plus.
Experience with data catalog, metadata management, or data transformation tooling.
Exposure to data privacy, classification, or compliance requirements in a data context.
Familiarity with configuration-as-code or automated deployment workflows.
Experience with data observability or data quality monitoring.
Agile development experience.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and rollout of data contract standards, enforcing them through automated validation.
Collaborate with data owners to improve metadata coverage.
Own the end-to-end architecture and delivery of the automated scoring pipeline for AI readiness.
Build and maintain jobs that collect quality signals and surface scores to data teams.
Drive adoption of governance frameworks across the data estate.
Maintain tagging and lineage automation frameworks.
Translate data access and privacy policies into practical guardrails.
Monitor AI usage across the company and define new avenues for AI assistance.
Build systems for AI trust and reliability, including query accuracy checks and guardrails for AI tools.
Ensure monitoring is in place to catch problems before they erode confidence.
Build and maintain the semantic framework to make data assets more legible to people and AI systems.
Add descriptions, context, and query guidance to improve natural language query accuracy.
Work with analysts and domain experts to capture and formalize business definitions.
Proactively leverage AI tools to accelerate development, maintain code quality, and explore new approaches.
Drive alignment with adjacent teams to onboard data assets into the AI-ready platform.
Influence roadmap priorities based on data readiness gaps.
Document processes and contribute to the team's shared knowledge base.
Tech Lead squad initiatives end-to-end.
Take responsibility for the growth and development of junior and mid-level engineers.
Drive architectural decisions and represent the squad in cross-team design reviews.
Embrace and uphold Ibotta's Core Values: Integrity, Boldness, Ownership, Teamwork, Transparency, and A good idea can come from anywhere.