Staff Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure - Slack

Slack • Seattle, WA

3d

About The Position

Slack is looking for a Staff / Senior Software Engineer to join the Data Infrastructure team within the broader Data Engineering organization. The mission of our team is to build secure, reliable, and cost-efficient infrastructure that powers Slack’s data ecosystem. We design and operate the core data platforms that enable data engineers, analysts, and machine learning practitioners to deliver trusted insights and data products across Slack. Our systems power critical workflows — from batch and streaming ingestion to real-time analytics and orchestration. We’re looking for strong technical leaders who can combine hands-on expertise with strategic impact, helping to scale and evolve the backbone of Slack’s data infrastructure as we grow. You’ll play a key role in the design, development, and operation of services that underpin data ingestion, transformation, storage, and orchestration at massive scale. As a Staff / Senior Engineer, you’ll be a Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) for one or more core data services, accountable for uptime, reliability, and performance, and a subject matter expert (SME) across multiple systems over time. Here are a few examples of what we work on: Enabling more realtime OLAP capabilities for internal and external customers Scaling our compute and orchestration layer. Creating and scaling agents to enable engineers and users on their workflow and data needs

Requirements

• 7+ years of software or infrastructure engineering experience, including time spent supporting data-intensive systems or data platforms.
• Proven experience in building, deploying, and operating distributed infrastructure at scale.
• Strong technical background with big data and infrastructure technologies — such as EMR, Airflow, Pinot, StarRocks, Hive Metastore, Kubernetes, or equivalent systems.
• Proficiency in Python, Golang, Bash, and SQL.
• Familiarity with CI/CD (GitHub Actions), Vault, Terraform, Chef, and Grafana.
• Deep understanding of infrastructure reliability, observability, and cost efficiency principles.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across cross-functional teams.
• A strong sense of ownership and a drive to deliver high-impact, autonomous results.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on experience supporting data pipelines or data engineering workflows is a strong plus.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate reliable and scalable data infrastructure powering Slack’s analytics, ML, and data-driven decision-making.
• Serve as DRI for 1–2 core data services (e.g., EMR, StarRocks, Pinot, Hive Metastore, Airflow, Temporal, Trino), ensuring uptime, reliability, and performance.
• Drive improvements in security, cost efficiency, and developer experience across our data infrastructure.
• Build automation and self-service tools that empower data teams to easily adopt and manage data workflows.
• Collaborate closely with data engineering, platform, and security teams to design scalable, well-governed solutions.
• Contribute to observability, monitoring, and alerting via Grafana and related tooling.
• Partner with other senior engineers to define best practices, technical standards, and support models for Slack’s data ecosystem.
• Mentor and coach other engineers, modeling ownership, collaboration, and operational excellence.

Benefits

• Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program.
• More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.salesforcebenefits.com.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees