Full-Time

Data Engineer

Samba Platform

Updated on 5/8/2026

Samba TV

Samba TV

201-500 employees

Delivers TV audience measurement and insights

Compensation Overview

$135k - $180k/yr

San Francisco, CA, USA

In Person

Category
Data & Analytics (1)
Required Skills
Kubernetes
Python
Airflow
BigQuery
Apache Spark
SQL
AWS
Scala
REST APIs
Data Governance
Databricks
Snowflake
Requirements
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience)
  • 5+ years of experience in data engineering or a related role
  • Strong hands-on experience with Databricks, Apache Spark and BigQuery or Snowflake
  • Proven experience with Modern table formats such as Delta Lake and Iceberg
  • A deep understanding of the data lifecycle and how teams operate with data
  • Hands-on experience implementing data governance and metadata management using Databricks Unity Catalog
  • Experience managing and extending Apache Airflow (custom operators, plugins, infrastructure)
  • Experience with Kubernetes
  • Solid experience with AWS cloud services, especially S3 and data-related services
  • Experience with data validation and data quality principles and working with SLA systems
  • Proficiency in Python and SQL
  • Experience with data modeling, data lakes, and lakehouse architectures and a strong understanding of distributed systems and big data processing
Responsibilities
  • Build scalable data product architecture, capable of supporting both internal and external data consumers
  • Responsible for modernizing our data frameworks and integrations with Databricks and BigQuery
  • Upgrade and reduce toil for developers on Apache Airflow
  • Develop and optimize data transformations using Apache Spark (PySpark/Scala)
  • Build procedures and guidelines to help teams operate with data
  • Identify bottlenecks in our development lifecycle and find solutions to improve them
  • Drive innovation throughout the tech org by evangelizing and educating teams on best practices and new technologies
  • Work directly with our data teams and FinOps teams to drive efforts that span across teams
  • Implement data governance, access control, and auditing using Databricks Unity Catalog
  • Build and integrate automated, reusable data validation suites using data quality frameworks (Great Expectations or similar)
  • Implement monitoring and anomaly detection systems for data quality, reliability and performance
  • Develop and manage REST APIs to support secure data access, automation, and integration
  • Collaborate with data scientists, analysts, and software engineers to deliver governed, reusable data assets
  • Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting for data workflows
  • Optimize cost and performance of cloud-based data infrastructure
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
  • Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines for data platforms
  • Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments
  • AWS, Databricks, or cloud data certifications
  • Experience working with data clean room environments, including implementation or collaboration within Snowflake, Databricks, or BigQuery ecosystems
  • Experience with streaming data pipelines (Kafka, Flink)

Samba TV collects and analyzes TV viewing data to help advertisers, broadcasters, and content creators understand what people watch. It embeds its technology in about 35 million smart TVs across 20 brands, creating a large viewership database and a household identity graph. The system works by using a proprietary multi-source panel from participating TVs to gather viewing activity, then turning that data into insights and analytics that clients can use to plan ads, optimize content, and measure performance. What sets Samba TV apart is the size and scope of its data: it claims the largest end-to-end viewership dataset and identity graph in the industry, with a panel hundreds of times larger than typical measurements and broad brand partnerships, while offering privacy controls for viewers who opt in or out. The company aims to provide data-driven, actionable insights to improve advertising effectiveness and content delivery across the global smart TV market.

Company Size

201-500

Company Stage

Debt Financing

Total Funding

$75.7M

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2008

Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Secured $60M venture debt in May 2026 to fund AI tools and acquisitions.
  • Partnerships with Disney, TikTok, Snap, and MediaTek expand global reach.
  • Appointed Jaya Aswani as CTO and Katie Soo to board in 2026 for AI scaling.

What critics are saying

  • Nielsen's $1.6B acquisition by Vista in 2023 bundles offerings undercutting Samba.
  • Google's Privacy Sandbox deprecation erodes Samba's household identity graph advantage.
  • $60M debt repayment forces dilutive raises if acquisitions underperform by 2028.

What makes Samba TV unique

  • Samba TV's patented ACR technology, invented in 2011, integrates across 24 top Smart TV brands.
  • Proprietary multi-source TV panel is 100 times larger than legacy measurement systems.
  • Samba Knowledge Graph uses first-party data from 48 million TVs and billions of web users.

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Benefits

Flexible Work Hours

Remote Work Options

Professional Development Budget

Mental Health Support

Company Equity

Employee Discounts

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

1%

2 year growth

-7%
TV Tech
Dec 8th, 2025
Samba TV Secures New Funding of up to $60 Million

Samba TV secures new funding of up to $60 million. SAN FRANCISCO - Samba TV has announced that it has secured new financing from Horizon Technology Finance Corporation, an affiliate of Monroe Capital, with an initial venture debt facility of $30 million, and up to $30 million more to support future growth. Samba TV said it will use the capital to accelerate the AI transformation in media and advertising, driving adoption of its advanced agentic advertising solutions. The financing will also support its efforts to expand its global operations and strategic partnerships, as a unified, cross-platform measurement source for global DSPs, SSPs and major platforms like TikTok and Snap. In addition, Samba reported that it "is now capitalized to continue its track-record of strategic acquisitions of technology companies." "The traditional advertising playbook is obsolete and Samba is delivering Agentic AI infrastructure the industry needs to execute with unified, real-time infrastructure to optimize every screen," said Ashwin Navin, CEO and co-founder of Samba TV. "This growth capital provides the strategic flexibility and firepower to aggressively execute our AI product roadmap, scale our global partnerships, and opportunistically execute on M&A opportunities when they present themselves. We chose to partner with Horizon because of their deep understanding of the technology landscape and their ability to provide sophisticated, non-dilutive capital solutions that align with our long-term vision." "The media and advertising sector is at a critical inflection point, and Samba has established itself as an indispensable global leader," said Mark Solovy, managing director and co-head, Technology Finance Group at Monroe Capital, the parent company of Horizon. "Samba TV's proprietary data, advanced AI platform, and its deep integration with the world's leading media platforms represent the exact kind of durable, scalable business model we seek to invest in. We are thrilled to provide the growth capital to support Ashwin and his team as they capitalize on this massive market opportunity."

Axios
Dec 8th, 2025
Samba TV raises $60M venture debt for acquisitions and AI measurement tools

Samba TV has secured up to $60 million in venture debt to fund acquisitions and develop AI-powered measurement tools, CEO Ashwin Navin told Axios. The funding reflects intensifying competition in the media measurement industry as advertisers demand real-time, cross-platform insights to optimise campaigns across television and digital channels. The venture debt will enable the company to scale its operations and expand its capabilities in tracking viewer behaviour and advertising effectiveness across multiple platforms.

MrWeb Ltd
Sep 5th, 2025
Daily Research News Online

Media intelligence firm Samba TV has announced a partnership with smart TV chipset supplier MediaTek, to launch 'Samba AI with MiraAware', an AI solution offering TV manufacturers, platforms and advertisers real-time, contextual intelligence for CTV content.

Digital IT News
Sep 4th, 2025
Samba AI Powers EdgeAI on Connected TVs with MediaTek

Samba TV and MediaTek launched Samba AI with MiraAware, an edge AI breakthrough that delivers real-time contextual intelligence to connected TVs (CTV).

MarTech360
Jun 18th, 2025
Samba TV and InfoSum Join Forces to Deliver Scalable, Privacy-First Agentic Media Measurement

Samba TV, a global leader in AI-powered media intelligence, announced a strategic international partnership with InfoSum, the world's leading data collaboration platform and part of WPP.