Senior Data Engineer - Apartments.com

CoStar Group•Irvine, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Data Engineer will help accelerate Apartments.com’s growth by building sitewide tracking architecture and feeding data into user-friendly KPI dashboards that monitor site performance, product usage, and consumer behavior. The position contributes to Apartments.com’s data engineering architecture and works across departments to provide analysis and insights for future growth. Responsibilities span data management, automated data infrastructure, data engineering and analytics solutions, and enabling data access and analysis for company teams. The role also calls for learning and responsibly applying AI technologies to address business and engineering challenges. The position is based in Irvine, California, with an in-office schedule Monday through Thursday and work from home on Fridays. The role includes designing and maintaining data platforms, pipelines, and ETL processes; integrating machine learning into data workflows; establishing governance and quality practices; and collaborating with software engineering, product, DBA, DevOps, and SecOps teams. It also involves mentoring and managing engineers and analysts and delivering software development projects to specification, schedule, and budget. The advertised base compensation range is $128,000–$190,000 annually. CoStar Group does not provide visa sponsorship for this position; applicants must already be eligible to work full-time in the United States.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited, not-for-profit, in-person college or university.
A track record of commitment to prior employers.
At least 6 years of hands-on software development experience delivering high-quality solutions.
Strong data engineering skills and proficiency in Python, PySpark, and SQL.
Solid foundation in object-oriented programming principles and best practices.
Demonstrated success building and launching data-driven products operating at terabyte scale.
Record of designing and implementing enterprise-level secure and accurate data platforms.
Ability to translate technical requirements into robust architecture, data models, and ETL strategies.
Practical experience with cloud-based relational and non-relational databases.
Knowledge of business intelligence software such as Power BI or similar tools.
Understanding of AI technologies and hands-on experience using AI development tools such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini, or Grok.
Ability to retrieve, synthesize, and present critical data in a structure useful for answering specific ad hoc questions.
Hands-on experience optimizing data, performing data quality checks, improving data accuracy, and improving query performance.
Must be currently eligible to work full-time in the United States; visa sponsorship is not available.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with or familiarity with big data platforms such as Databricks or Snowflake.
Proficiency with cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure.
Experience with NoSQL databases such as DynamoDB and object storage systems such as Amazon S3 or GCS.
Practical knowledge of event-streaming technologies, especially Kafka.
Experience using AWS compute and container services for scalable solutions.
Familiarity with large language models, prompt engineering, or agent-based architectures.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills for complex technical challenges.
Ability to understand technical challenges and complex designs and communicate them as clear business ideas or solutions to senior management and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Design and oversee implementation of dimensional models, database designs, and cloud data platform structures, including Databricks, Snowflake, and BigQuery.
Develop frameworks for secure data warehouses and data lakehouses using Medallion Architecture principles.
Design, develop, and maintain scalable data pipelines and ETL processes using Databricks, Snowflake, and AWS services.
Implement and optimize Spark jobs, data transformations, and data-processing workflows in Databricks.
Build and deploy AI/ML models; integrate machine learning into data pipelines and use Databricks ML and AWS ML to develop predictive models and business insights.
Define and apply AI-assisted software development practices to improve engineering productivity and code quality.
Translate data domains through data transformations to support different business needs.
Oversee automated data infrastructure and collaborate with software engineering and product teams to streamline product data tracking.
Integrate data from disparate sources across domains into existing data models.
Implement data governance, lineage tracking, testing, and monitoring frameworks to ensure data integrity.
Optimize data and query performance hands-on.
Work with DBA, DevOps, SecOps, and other company teams to facilitate data access and analysis.
Mentor and manage engineers and analysts in their normal responsibilities.
Deliver software development projects to specification and within schedule and budget parameters.
Use AWS DevOps and CI/CD best practices, including Terraform, to automate deployment and management of data pipelines and infrastructure.
Build sitewide tracking architecture and KPI dashboards that track site performance and product usage and provide insights into consumer behavior.
Provide analysis and insights for future growth and facilitate data access and analysis for key company teams.

Benefits

Generous compensation and performance-based incentives.
Internal training and tuition reimbursement.
Comprehensive medical, vision, dental, and prescription drug coverage.
Life, legal, and supplementary insurance.
Virtual and in-person mental health counseling services for individuals and families.
Commuter and parking benefits.
401(k) retirement plan with matching contributions.
Employee stock purchase plan.
Paid time off.
On-site fitness center and/or reimbursed fitness center membership costs, depending on location; facilities and offerings may include a yoga studio, Pelotons, personal training, and group exercise classes.
Access to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Employee Resource Groups.
Complimentary gourmet coffee, tea, hot chocolate, fresh fruit, and other healthy snacks.