Staff Data Engineer

PayNearMe, Inc.

7d • $195,000 - $225,000 • Remote

About The Position

As a Staff Data Engineer, you will provide technical leadership in the design, development, and evolution of PayNearMe's modern data platform and data products. You will work closely with Product, Engineering, Risk, Finance, Operations, and Analytics teams to model complex payment data into trusted, governed, and reusable data products that power reporting, analytics, operational intelligence, AI, and customer-facing applications. This role requires deep expertise in enterprise data modeling, modern cloud data engineering, and payment data. You'll lead the design of scalable data models across the Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers of our lakehouse architecture while establishing engineering best practices and mentoring other engineers through technical leadership.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or related field.
• 10+ years of professional experience in Data Engineering, Analytics Engineering, or Data Platform Engineering.
• Deep expertise designing enterprise-scale data platforms and cloud-native data architectures.
• Strong experience modeling complex business domains with emphasis on payment, financial, or transactional data.
• Expert knowledge of: Dimensional modeling, Fact and dimension design, Star schema design, Semantic modeling, Data warehouse architecture
• Experience designing and maintaining curated Silver and Gold layer data models within modern lakehouse architectures.
• Expert SQL skills with demonstrated experience writing highly performant analytical queries.
• Strong Python programming skills.
• Extensive hands-on experience with: Snowflake, dbt, Fivetran, AWS, GitLab, Looker / LookML
• Strong understanding of: ELT architectures, Data quality, Metadata management, Data lineage, Data observability, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure-as-Code
• Experience building highly reliable, scalable, and maintainable data pipelines.
• Excellent problem-solving and diagnostic skills.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction without direct management responsibility.
• Strong organizational and communication skills

Nice To Haves

• Experience within fintech, payment processing, banking, or regulated financial services.
• Experience with Apache Iceberg and modern lakehouse architectures.
• Familiarity with Dataiku, Monte Carlo, and Terraform/OpenTofu.
• Experience designing data products supporting AI and machine learning initiatives.
• Knowledge of PCI DSS, SOC 2, and financial data governance requirements.
• Experience implementing semantic layers and enterprise business metrics.
• Experience mentoring engineers and driving engineering standards across teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of scalable data models across Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers
• Collaborate with business stakeholders, product managers, and engineering teams to understand business processes and translate them into well-designed analytical data models.
• Design conceptual, logical, and physical data models supporting enterprise reporting, operational analytics, and AI initiatives
• Develop reusable semantic models that provide consistent business definitions and metrics across the organization
• Apply dimensional modeling best practices including: Fact and dimension modeling, Star and snowflake schemas, Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD), Conformed dimensions, Semantic layer design
• Ensure data models are scalable, maintainable, performant, and easily consumable
• Design, build, and optimize cloud-native ELT pipelines using dbt, Fivetran, Python, and AWS Airflow
• Build trusted, reusable data products supporting: Payment and transaction analytics, Merchant reporting, Customer insights, Financial reporting, Fraud and risk analytics, Regulatory reporting
• Capture and transform transactional payment data from operational systems into curated analytical datasets
• Design highly performant incremental data pipelines capable of processing high-volume payment transactions
• Optimize query performance and execution
• Develop a deep understanding of PayNearMe's payment ecosystem, including payment lifecycle events, settlements, ACH, card processing, client operations, and consumer transactions
• Model complex financial and payment data with a focus on accuracy, reconciliation, auditability, and regulatory compliance
• Partner with domain experts to establish trusted enterprise definitions and business metrics
• Serve as a technical leader and trusted advisor across Data Product Engineering initiatives
• Drive engineering standards, reusable design patterns, and best practices for data modeling and pipeline development
• Participate in architecture reviews and influence technical direction across multiple engineering teams.
• Mentor engineers through design reviews, code reviews, documentation, and technical coaching
• Promote engineering excellence through testing, CI/CD, observability, and Infrastructure-as-Code practices
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, Finance, Risk, and Operations teams to deliver high-value data products
• Work collaboratively with stakeholders to understand evolving business requirements and translate them into scalable technical solutions
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Foster strong collaboration across teams to improve data quality, governance, and business alignment

Benefits

• Competitive salary and benefits with growth-company options grant
• Fast- paced and professional work culture
• Stock options with standard startup vesting - 1 year cliff; 4 years total
• $50 monthly communication expense stipend to go towards your phone/internet bill
• $250 stipend to enhance your WFH setup
• Reimbursement for peripheral equipment: monitor (up to $400), keyboard and mouse (up to $200)
• Premium medical benefits including vision and dental (100% coverage for employees)
• Company-sponsored life and disability insurance
• Paid parental bonding leave
• Paid sick leave, jury duty, bereavement
• 401k plan
• Flexible Time Off (our team members typically take off ~3-4 weeks per year)
• Volunteer Time Off
• 13 scheduled holidays

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior