Full-Time

Senior Data Engineer

Cortex

Cortex

51-200 employees

Internal developer portal for engineering automation

Compensation Overview

$175k - $205k/yr

+ Equity Package

Remote in USA

Remote

Remote within the United States, with all-company offsites a few times a year.

Bachelor's

Category
Data & Analytics (1)
Required Skills
Python
BigQuery
SQL
ETL
Data Engineering
Segment
OpenTelemetry
ClickHouse
Data Modeling

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Requirements
  • A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • At least 4 years of hands-on data engineering experience building and owning production pipelines.
  • Proficiency with dbt, a cloud data warehouse such as BigQuery, and ETL/ELT tooling.
  • Strong SQL skills and proficiency in a general-purpose language such as Python for pipeline and transformation work.
  • Solid data modeling judgment focused on data quality, testing, and reliability.
  • A bias toward mapping and rationalizing a messy environment before adding to it.
  • Strong communication and collaboration skills, including collaboration with non-engineering stakeholders.
  • Critical, fluent use of AI in day-to-day engineering, including reviewing AI output as carefully as a teammate's pull request.
Responsibilities
  • Own data pipelines end to end, including ingestion, transformation with dbt, warehousing with BigQuery, and delivery into reporting and business intelligence through Omni.
  • Audit and map the existing data systems before rebuilding them, then consolidate the stack toward a single source of truth.
  • Build and maintain dbt models and transformation logic with tests, documentation, and clear contracts.
  • Establish data quality, observability, and reliability practices so pipelines are maintained intentionally rather than reactively.
  • Own product analytics, including instrumentation and event tracking, data models for usage and adoption, and the metrics used by go-to-market and product teams.
  • Partner with go-to-market operations to consolidate reporting into a single tool and ensure the data foundations support AI automation and tools.
  • Support research for external reports by partnering with marketing to source, validate, and retrieve the right data.
  • Lay the groundwork for high-volume and streaming ingestion, such as telemetry and OpenTelemetry, as the product evolves.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience with high-volume or streaming systems such as ClickHouse and OpenTelemetry, or customer data platform and ETL tools such as Segment and Hevo.
  • Previous experience at a startup.

Cortex is an internal developer portal that helps software teams work more efficiently and with higher quality. It provides automatic cataloging of components, continuous assessment of code quality and compliance, and reliable software deployment workflows. The platform integrates into development pipelines, centralizes documentation and metrics, and supports teams at companies like Docker, TripAdvisor, and Confluent through a subscription-based model. Cortex differs from many competitors by focusing on an integrated portal that automates cataloging and ongoing quality checks within the software delivery process, rather than only offering individual tools. Its goal is to help organizations maintain high engineering standards, reduce time-to-market, and lower operational costs.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Series C

Total Funding

$112.8M

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2019

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Cortex launched DRIVE in June 2026, creating fresh enterprise demand around AI governance.
  • The company cites current customers like Xero and long-standing logos like Docker, TripAdvisor, Confluent.
  • Partnerships with Sonar and new self-serve orchestration features deepen platform stickiness and expansion.

What critics are saying

  • Port and Roadie target Cortex’s buyers with more flexible or managed alternatives in 2026.
  • Cortex’s higher-friction, opinionated model risks slower expansion versus cheaper Backstage-based deployments.
  • If AI agents and scorecards commoditize, Cortex loses differentiation and becomes another workflow layer.

What makes Cortex unique

  • Cortex now sells an Engineering Operations platform, not just a 2026 internal developer portal.
  • DRIVE formalizes operational health across Delivery, Reliability, Initiatives, Vigilance, and Efficiency.
  • Xero migrated from spreadsheets to Cortex, using it as its engineering system of record.

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Benefits

Competitive pay & equity

Unlimited PTO

Cortex Wallet

Comprehensive health coverage

Retirement plans

Gender neutral parental leave

Weekly virtual team bonding experiences

Quarterly team retreats

Professional & career development

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

-1%

2 year growth

2%
Pervaziv AI
Aug 6th, 2026
Building a more trustworthy Cortex for enterprise software delivery.

Building a more trustworthy Cortex for enterprise software delivery. Enterprise teams do not need AI that merely writes code. They need AI that fits into real software-delivery practices: clear ownership, dependable validation, controlled access, useful continuity, and evidence that helps people decide what should happen next. This Cortex update advances that goal. It strengthens the end-to-end coding-agent experience - from request through code change, validation, review, recovery, and learning - while keeping developers and organizations in control. From code generation to accountable delivery. Cortex is evolving from a coding assistant into a more complete development partner. It can help teams understand requests, prepare code changes, run appropriate checks, summarize outcomes, and present the resulting work for review. The experience now makes the status of a coding task easier to understand at a glance. Developers can see the files involved, the scope of a change, validation status, and whether a change is still awaiting review. This is important in enterprise environments, where a natural-language statement that work is "done" is not enough. Teams need a concise, reviewable record of what the agent actually produced and what evidence supports it. Clear separation of responsibilities. Reliable AI development requires different capabilities to have clearly defined roles. Cortex now more deliberately separates the work of producing code, carrying out bounded development actions, validating results, and providing advisory review. This helps reduce confusion between an agent proposing a change and a system confirming that the change is ready for use. The benefit is a more predictable workflow. Coding assistance can remain focused on solving the task; validation can provide concrete execution evidence; and review can supply an independent perspective. Each signal is visible to the developer rather than being hidden behind an opaque automated decision. Human judgment remains the control point. Cortex now includes an advisory Verifier capability for eligible users. After a proposed change has been prepared and validation evidence is available, the verifier can provide an additional assessment: ready to proceed, needs revision, reject, or requires further review. This is designed as an advisory control, not an autonomous authority. Developers and teams retain the ability to inspect the diff, review supporting evidence, rerun validation, accept or reject a proposal, request a different approach, or escalate an important decision. Cortex does not silently merge code, authorize a patch, or substitute an automated verdict for human responsibility. That model gives organizations a practical path to use AI more broadly without weakening code-review standards or governance expectations. More honest validation and risk signals. A passing validation command is valuable evidence, but it is not a complete statement of quality. A patch can pass a local test while still needing review for coverage, maintainability, security, compatibility, or business correctness. Cortex now makes this distinction clearer. It separates validation outcomes from review recommendations and highlights when certain local checks were unavailable. Teams can see both what was verified and what remains uncertain. This creates a more useful decision-making experience than a simple pass/fail label. It helps developers move quickly when evidence is strong while preserving appropriate caution when the evidence is incomplete. Faster, more resilient AI workflows. AI-assisted development must be efficient as well as capable. Cortex has strengthened routing and recovery behavior so coding tasks are handled by the most appropriate capability and do not consume excessive time or resources through unnecessary retries or unsuitable fallback paths. The result is a more dependable experience for common coding requests and clearer behavior when a supporting service is unavailable. Instead of leaving a developer waiting indefinitely or presenting confusing results, Cortex keeps recovery bounded and communicates the practical outcome. When an optional advisory review service is unavailable, the code change remains available for user review. Internal provider details are not exposed in the developer experience, and no automated approval is implied. Reliable continuity across the development experience. Development work often spans restarts, refreshes, reconnects, devices, and long-running sessions. Cortex has improved session continuity so active work is less likely to be lost, duplicated, or displayed inconsistently when a client reconnects. Conversation restoration is now more reliable across desktop, browser, and mobile experiences. The improvements focus on preserving meaningful user and agent activity, maintaining clearer timing and review context, and preventing incomplete or operational-only records from appearing as customer-facing conversation. Cortex has also expanded support for longer active conversations. This better reflects real enterprise development, where an investigation, implementation, testing cycle, and review may extend well beyond a short chat exchange. Consistent review across Cortex surfaces. Whether a developer is working from an editor, browser, or mobile device, the underlying expectation is the same: proposed changes should be understandable and reviewable. Cortex is aligning the change-review experience across supported surfaces so users receive clearer status signals, compact validation indicators, accessible review actions, and consistent handling of pending changes. This reduces friction when work moves between environments and helps teams maintain a common review standard. Enterprise access that follows the user. Enterprise AI must respect the organization's existing boundaries. Cortex is strengthening the connection between identity, access, and AI capability so that developers receive the assistance appropriate to their role, plan, and approved work environment. This gives organizations greater confidence that advanced coding assistance, connected enterprise systems, and higher-impact workflows are available deliberately, not simply because a client requests them. It also creates a cleaner path for security, IT, and engineering leaders to expand adoption in line with internal policy. Controlled access for advanced capabilities. Advanced AI review capabilities need to be introduced with clear access controls. Cortex now supports subscription-based availability for advisory patch review, allowing organizations to make these capabilities available according to their commercial plan and governance requirements. This enables a measured adoption path. Organizations can begin with standard coding assistance, enable enhanced review for the right teams, and expand usage as internal practices and confidence mature. A connected development experience. Modern development does not happen in one place. Engineers move between their IDE, browser, and mobile device as they investigate issues, review work, coordinate with colleagues, and return to active tasks. Cortex is making that experience more continuous. Developers can carry meaningful work context across supported surfaces, return to previous discussions more easily, and maintain a more consistent experience regardless of where they choose to work. The goal is to reduce the friction of switching environments without weakening governance or creating disconnected AI experiences. A foundation for continuous quality improvement. Cortex is also establishing a stronger evaluation foundation for coding-agent quality. This enables the platform to assess workflow reliability over time: how coding tasks recover, how often validation is performed, how review signals align with outcomes, and where user experience can improve. These capabilities support future improvements to coding agents, validation workflows, and verifier models while keeping data governance central. Organizations can control whether eligible feedback contributes to learning and evaluation, preserving transparency and choice. What this means for enterprises. Cortex is becoming a more accountable AI development environment. It helps teams accelerate coding work while retaining the safeguards that matter in production software delivery: * Clear evidence of what changed and what was checked * Better separation between generation, execution, validation, and review * Advisory AI review with human-controlled decisions * More honest visibility into validation status and remaining risk * Faster, bounded recovery when supporting services fail * Reliable continuity across editor, browser, and mobile workflows * Subscription-aware access to advanced capabilities * A scalable foundation for measuring and improving AI quality The objective is not automation for its own sake. It is to help engineering organizations deliver software faster with stronger visibility, clearer accountability, and greater confidence in every AI-assisted change.

Enrich
Aug 5th, 2026
The new playbook for engineering operations: insights from Cortex.

The new playbook for engineering operations: insights from Cortex. Session summary. In this session, Ganesh Datta, CTO & Co-founder of Cortex, introduced the DRIVE Framework, a practical operating model for evaluating engineering organizations in the age of AI. Rather than focusing on developer productivity alone, Ganesh challenged leaders to think about operational health as a competitive advantage - sharing concrete examples of how leading engineering organizations are redesigning reviews, governance, and quality systems to keep pace as AI dramatically accelerates software development. Key takeaways. * AI has changed the bottleneck - engineering leadership hasn't caught up yet. As AI dramatically increases the speed of software development, the limiting factor is no longer writing code - it's ensuring organizations can maintain reliability, quality, security, and operational discipline. Engineering leaders need new operating models built for an AI-native world. * Developer productivity is no longer the metric that matters most. AI makes it easier than ever to produce more code, but shipping more software doesn't necessarily create more customer value. Leaders should increasingly measure operational health, customer outcomes, and system reliability instead of individual engineering output. * Operational Excellence Reviews should become a regular leadership practice. Ganesh introduced the DRIVE Framework as a structured way for engineering organizations to periodically assess operational health, identify systemic risks, and prioritize improvements before problems become outages or organizational bottlenecks. * Every engineering organization should intentionally design its own operating system. The highest-performing teams don't blindly copy Google, Netflix, or Amazon. Instead, they define the standards, governance, workflows, and engineering practices that best fit their own business, customers, and stage of growth. * AI increases the need for engineering standards - not less. As AI-generated code becomes commonplace, organizations need stronger ownership models, review processes, architectural standards, and service governance to prevent operational complexity from growing faster than engineering teams can manage it. * Focus on the metrics your customers actually experience. Rather than optimizing internal engineering dashboards alone, Ganesh encouraged leaders to evaluate customer-facing outcomes such as reliability, service health, and functional availability - the measures that ultimately determine whether engineering is delivering value. * Automate routine work so engineers can focus on high-leverage decisions. One example discussed automatically merging low-risk pull requests because senior engineers had become overwhelmed reviewing AI-generated code. As development accelerates, organizations should redesign workflows so human expertise is reserved for the highest-risk decisions. * Operational health is a systems problem - not an individual performance problem. The DRIVE Framework encourages leaders to evaluate how well the entire engineering organization functions together. Improving isolated teams or individuals has limited impact if the broader delivery system remains constrained. * The best engineering reviews create learning - not blame. Operational reviews should surface patterns, encourage cross-functional discussion, and drive continuous improvement rather than becoming compliance exercises or performance audits. The goal is to strengthen the organization, not assign fault. * The organizations that win in the AI era will pair AI acceleration with operational discipline. Ganesh's central message was that AI is becoming table stakes. The lasting competitive advantage will belong to companies that combine AI-powered development with strong engineering systems, clear governance, and a culture of continuous operational improvement.

Associated Press
Jun 17th, 2026
Cortex launches DRIVE framework to measure engineering org effectiveness in AI era

Cortex has released DRIVE, a framework for measuring engineering organisational effectiveness as AI agents increasingly automate software development. The framework addresses whether organisations can absorb and safely operate code produced by developers and AI agents. DRIVE evaluates five areas: delivery sustainability, reliability, initiative progress, security vigilance and resource efficiency. It pairs with an Operational Excellence review process, drawing from practices at AWS, Stripe and Google, to help leadership act on organisational health metrics. "The real question now is whether the organisation around the code can turn what its developers and agents produce into reliable software without outrunning its ability to operate it," said Ganesh Datta, Cortex CTO and co-founder. The framework builds on existing signals like DORA metrics rather than replacing them.

Business Wire
Mar 23rd, 2026
Cortex Secures $2.5M in Funding from Sequoia -- New Reliability as Code Platform Provides Comprehensive Microservices Visibility and Control for Engineering and SRE Teams

Reliability as Code pioneer Cortex today announced that it has secured $2.5 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital. The new funds will accelerate dev...

Today's Medical Developments
Nov 17th, 2024
Boston Scientific to Acquire Cortex

Boston Scientific to acquire Cortex.