Senior Data Engineer

Join Kargo as a Senior Data Engineer, where you will build and scale the data infrastructure that powers our targeting, identity, and measurement capabilities. You will be responsible for the hands-on implementation of pipelines, systems, and tooling that turn raw data into competitive advantage. Your success will be measured by the optimization and reliability of core ETL/ELT pipelines, the onboarding of new datasets, the adoption of CI/CD practices, the implementation of privacy-compliant data methodologies, and the thoroughness of technical documentation.

• Optimizing and ensuring the operational reliability of core ETL/ELT pipelines, addressing bottlenecks, and documenting SLAs.
• Onboarding new datasets and integrating at least one meaningful new data source end-to-end, activating targeting or measurement use cases.
• Implementing and documenting privacy-compliant data methodologies, ensuring modern approaches to identity and targeting meet GDPR/CCPA standards.
• Extensive AWS experience including EKS, Docker, and Kubernetes; comfortable owning infrastructure deployment and scaling decisions
• Deep proficiency in Python and Spark for building and optimizing large-scale data pipelines; strong grasp of data structuring for performance and efficiency
• Working knowledge of identity, privacy, and targeting methodologies in ad tech — understands how data flows through the ecosystem and where privacy constraints apply
• CI/CD fluency — ArgoCD, automated testing pipelines, and monitoring via Prometheus; treats deployment reliability as a first-class concern
• Hands-on experience with Airflow for orchestrating complex data workflows, and Apache Iceberg for table format management at scale
• Familiarity with analytical warehousing in Snowflake or ClickHouse — SQL optimization, cost management, and performance tuning
• Experience with real-time streaming technologies — Kafka, Flink — for latency-sensitive data processing use cases
• Familiarity with Aerospike or similar low-latency key-value stores used in high-throughput targeting systems
• Takes operational responsibility for the systems they build; monitors, iterates, and improves without being prompted
• Drives implementation independently from ambiguous brief to working system — doesn't wait for perfect specs to start building
• Brings structured thinking to complex, multi-system challenges; breaks down problems clearly before reaching for a solution
• Optimizes for the right outcome — performance, cost, reliability — not just the fastest path to "done"
• Contributes actively in design and brainstorming sessions; brings strong opinions and is equally willing to update them when better ideas emerge
• Communicates technical decisions clearly to both engineering peers and non-technical stakeholders without oversimplifying
• Treats onboarding others as part of the job; leaves systems better understood than they found them
• Writes documentation that actually gets used — clear, thorough, and maintained as systems evolve