Staff Software Engineer

At Tecton, we solve the complex data problems in production machine learning. Tecton’s feature platform makes it simple to activate data for smarter models and predictions, abstracting away the complex engineering to speed up innovation.

Tecton’s founders developed the first Feature Store when they created Uber’s Michelangelo ML platform, and we’re now bringing those same capabilities to every organization in the world.

Tecton is funded by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Kleiner Perkins, along with strategic investments from Snowflake and Databricks. We have a fast-growing team that’s distributed around the world, with offices in San Francisco and New York City. Our team has years of experience building and operating business-critical machine learning systems at leading tech companies like Uber, Google, Meta, Airbnb, Lyft, and Twitter.

We are building Rift (talk, blog post) - a new fully managed compute environment that allows data scientists to construct powerful batch and streaming pipelines in Python. Our new environment leverages popular open-source technologies such as Ray, Arrow, and DuckDB. We also have deep integrations with Spark platforms (Databricks, EMR, Dataproc) and data warehouses (e.g. Snowflake, BigQuery, RedShift), along with performant training data pipelines and a workload orchestration platform.

As a senior engineer on the Batch Data team, you’ll play a critical role in architecting, designing, and scaling the core compute engines and storage architecture used by every Tecton customer. You'll contribute to the performance of our query optimizer, from parsing & optimization to plan selection.  Think of this team as the “beating heart” of Tecton.

This role is a unique opportunity that combines customer-obsessed product focus with platform and data engineering innovation and helps companies accelerate their path to real-time AI. You will be working in one or more of the following areas to build the next generation of Tecton infrastructure:

• Distributed compute and resource management

• Query optimization and distributed execution

• Cross-platform integrations with state-of-the-art data platforms

Responsibilities

• Own and lead significant technical domains starting from the problem definition and technical requirements to implementation and maintenance

• Lead projects of strategic importance to Tecton spanning cross-functional teams, including product management and other engineering teams

• Drive efforts to improve engineering practices, tooling, and processes along with mentorship for junior engineers

• Develop a deep understanding of the fundamental problems our customers face in building ML systems

• Be a generalist as needed. We’re a small, but growing engineering team, and each engineer needs to be versatile

Qualifications

• Experience working in large Python, Java, Kotlin, or Go codebases and running cloud-native Spark systems (e.g. AWS EMR, Databricks, GCP Dataproc)

• Experience in performance tuning of Spark, Ray, Maestro, or Airflow jobs

• Knowledge of data formats such as Parquet, Avro, Arrow, Iceberg, or Delta Lake, and object storage (e.g. S3, GCS)

• Expertise with cloud-scale query performance, query optimization, query planning, heuristic query execution techniques, and cost-driven optimizations

• Experience with internals of distributed systems, SQL/NoSQL databases, data lakes, or data warehouses

• Strong communication skills and ability to write detailed technical specifications

• Excitement about coaching and mentorship of junior engineers

• BSc, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or related fields

• 8+ years of experience in building product software systems

The estimated US base salary range for this position is $197,000 - $266,000 annually for employees based within California & New York. In addition to base salary, we offer competitive equity & comprehensive benefits such as medical, dental, vision, life, 401(K), flexible paid time off, 10 paid holidays each calendar year, sick time, leave of absence as per the FMLA and other relevant leave laws. Individual compensation packages are based on multiple factors such as location, level, role scope, and complexity, as well as additional job-related factors such as skills, experience, and expertise.

Tecton is a remote-friendly company that employs a hybrid working policy for employees based in the SF, NY, and Seattle areas. We believe that working in-person helps us stay connected, collaborate faster, and promote a strong culture while still providing the flexibility of working from home. We expect SF & NY employees to be in the office at least two designated days per week, and those in the Seattle area at least two designated days per month.

Tecton values diversity and is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  If you would like to request any accommodations from the application through to the interview, please contact us at [email protected].

This employer participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S.