Staff Software Engineer, Metadata

Fivetran•Denver, CO

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Fivetran and dbt Labs are building data pipelines to power the modern data stack for thousands of companies. We're looking for a staff software engineer to be a technical leader on our Metadata team, which owns the metadata layer of the dbt platform — the discovery API, catalog, lineage, and run history services that let customers understand, trust, and act on what their data is doing. As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll contribute to the technical direction for the team. You'll own the architecture of major subsystems, lead complex projects that span multiple engineers, and raise the bar for design and code quality across the team. You'll spend your time on the hardest technical problems, and multiply the team through design reviews, coaching, and mentorship. This is a full-time, remote position. We do expect the successful candidate to come to the Denver, CA office from time to time.

Requirements

8+ years of software engineering experience with a track record of leading complex, team-scope technical work to completion
Deep expertise designing and owning subsystems in distributed, cloud-based systems
Demonstrated ability to set technical direction for a team and drive multi-engineer initiatives across an area of ownership
Excellent design and architecture judgment; identifies design flaws in existing systems and proposes sound solutions with clear trade-offs
Writes exemplary, well-tested code that serves as a model for others, and reliably estimates and delivers sprint to sprint
Strong track record of raising quality through code review, coaching peers, and enforcing accepted engineering practices
Experience partnering with QE on test strategy and owning operational health — incidents, post-mortems, reliability, and performance
Proficiency in a modern backend or systems language such as Python, Java, C++, or C#
Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and managing dev infrastructure
Fluent in using AI code assistants and coding agents to generate and investigate code, and conversational AI (e.g. Claude, ChatGPT) to author, review, and synthesize SDLC artifacts — and able to model those practices for a team

Nice To Haves

Experience in data processing (ETL, ELT) and/or cloud-based data platforms
Experience architecting metadata, catalog, lineage, or discovery/search systems
Experience with GraphQL APIs and high-throughput, multi-tenant data services
Familiarity with the analytics engineering workflow and the dbt ecosystem

Responsibilities

Lead the design and delivery of complex, team-level projects across the Metadata services, coordinating development across multiple engineers
Independently design and develop the architecture of new subsystems, and own team-level subsystems end to end
Use AI tooling and agents — across development and SDLC artifacts such as TDDs, PRDs, post-mortems, and test plans
Review and approve technical designs, ensuring they meet a high quality bar, and identify design deficiencies before they ship
Drive technical initiatives across the team's responsibility areas — discovery API, catalog, lineage, and run history
Set and uphold design, architecture, and coding best practices, and hold teammates accountable for code quality
Coach and mentor engineers, demonstrably improving the quality of code across the team
Write technical specs, document common components, and keep the team accountable for necessary project documentation
Fix and optimize critical parts of the codebase, drive incident follow-through, and advance the reliability and performance of the services you own
Participate periodically in the on-call rotation