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dbt LabsDL

Software Engineering Manager

dbt Labs is on a mission to empower data practitioners to create and disseminate organizational knowledge.

dbt Labs

Employee count: 201-500

Salary: 180k-220k USD

United States only

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About Us

dbt Labs is the pioneer of analytics engineering, helping data teams transform raw data into reliable, actionable insights. Since 2016, we’ve grown from an open source project into the leading analytics engineering platform, now used by over 90,000 teams every week, driving data transformations and AI use cases.

As of February 2025, we’ve surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and serve more than 5,400 dbt Platform customers, including Astra Zenica, Sky, Nasdaq, Volvo, JetBlue, and SafetyCulture.

We’re backed by top-tier investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Altimeter. At our core, we believe in empowering data practitioners:

  • Reliable, high-quality data is the fuel that propels AI-powered data engineering.

  • AI is changing data work, fast. dbt’s data control plane keeps data engineers ahead of that curve.
  • We empower engineers to deliver reliable, governed data faster, cheaper, and at scale.

dbt Labs is now synonymous with analytics engineering, defining the modern data stack and serving as the data control plane for enterprise teams around the world. And we’re just getting started.. We’re growing fast and building a team of passionate, curious people across the globe. Learn more about what makes us special by checking out our values.

About the Team

You'll lead the AI Platform Team, the engine room for agentic workflows at dbt Labs. This team doesn't just build features; it builds the Agentic Platform that powers both our internal AI features and external AI integrations.

In this role, you can expect to:

  • Build, lead, and coach a team of 5–8 engineers focused on building a robust, scalable platform for AI agents.
  • Architect the "Agent-First" Experience: Move dbt beyond a UI-driven tool by building the APIs and services required for agents to reason, plan, and execute within the dbt ecosystem.
  • Define dbt’s MCP Strategy: Lead the development of dbt MCP tools that allow Claude, Codex, and other LLMs to fetch context, validate SQL, and understand metrics without leaving their development environment.
  • Bridge Platform and Product: Partner with product teams to ensure that the AI Platform provides the necessary primitives (memory, tool-calling, and reasoning loops) for dbt’s specific agentic use cases.
  • Coach engineers in building "Agent-ready" codebases—focusing on deterministic outputs from a non-deterministic world and the nuances of tool-use optimization.
  • Drive Technical Excellence: Establish the standards for how agents should interact with dbt Cloud, ensuring security, governance, and auditability are never compromised for autonomy.

Mandatory Skills

  • 3+ years in people management leading high-performing software engineering teams.
  • Experience with Agentic Architectures: You understand the lifecycle of an agentic loop (Plan -> Act -> Observe) and how to build infrastructure that supports it.
  • Technical Breadth in APIs & Protocols: Deep experience with API design, and ideally, familiarity with emerging standards like MCP (Model Context Protocol) or OpenAI Function Calling.
  • Software Engineering Fundamentals: You have a strong POV on how to maintain dbt’s "Analytics Engineering" rigors (testing, CI/CD) in an AI-driven world.

You are a good fit if you have:

  • A passion for Developer Tools: You understand the workflow of a data engineer and how tools like Claude Code or Codex are changing that workflow.
  • Experience with Orchestration: You’ve built systems that manage state and context for LLMs.
  • Strategic Collaboration: You can partner with external AI labs and internal teams to ensure dbt is the preferred "data context" layer for all major LLMs.

You’ll have an edge if you have:

  • Direct experience building or contributing to MCP servers.
  • Experience in the "Modern Data Stack": You understand the importance of the dbt Semantic Layer and how it acts as a "source of truth" for AI.
  • Excellent written communication skills: Essential for a remote-first culture and for documenting the "rules of engagement" for AI agents.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary:We offer competitive compensation packages commensurate with experience, including salary, equity, and where applicable, performance-based pay. Our Talent Acquisition Team can answer questions around dbt Labs' total rewards during your interview process. In select locations (including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York Metro, San Francisco, DC Metro, Seattle, Austin), an alternate range may apply, as specified below.
  • The typical starting salary range for this role is: $180,000 - $220,000 USD
  • The typical starting salary range for this role in the select locations listed is: $200,000 - $243,000 US

Equity Stake


Benefits - dbt Labs offers:
  • Unlimited vacation (and yes we use it!)
  • 401k w/3% guaranteed contribution
  • Excellent healthcare
  • Paid Parental Leave
  • Wellness stipend
  • Home office stipend, and more!
*Equity or comparable benefits may be offered depending on the legal limitations

Our Hiring Process (All Video Interviews)

  • Interview with a Talent Acquisition Partner (30 Mins)
  • Technical Interview with Hiring Manager (60 Mins)
  • Team Interviews ( 3 rounds, 45 Mins each)
  • Final Leadership Interview (30 Mins)

If you’re passionate about building well-designed, high-impact software, we’d love to hear from you!

dbt Labs is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building an inclusive team that welcomes diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. Even if your experience doesn’t perfectly align with the job description, we encourage you to apply—we value potential just as much as a perfect resume.

Want to learn more about our focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at dbt Labs? Check out our DEI page.

dbt Labs reserves the right to amend or withdraw the posting at any time. For employees outside the United States, dbt Labs offers a competitive benefits package. RSUs or comparable benefits may be offered depending on the legal or country limitations.

About the job

Apply before

Posted on

Job type

Full Time

Experience level

Senior

Salary

Salary: 180k-220k USD

Experience

3 years minimum

Location requirements

Hiring timezones

United States +/- 0 hours

About dbt Labs

Learn more about dbt Labs and their company culture.

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dbt Labs is on a mission to empower data practitioners to create and disseminate organizational knowledge.

Our values

Initially penned before the company was even founded, our values have been the foundation on which we've built a company, and a movement.

We are a mission-driven company. We believe that profits are an important tool in the pursuit of our mission, but they are not the mission itself.

We contribute to the knowledge loop. The highest goal of any human is to produce new knowledge that can subsequently be built upon by others. This is the process upon which every good thing in human society has been built. We participate in this most fundamental of human endeavors by thinking in public and defaulting to open source.

We are more concerned with value creation than value capture. We will only succeed if we create value in the world. If we optimize for that first, commercial success will follow.

Work done well is its own end. We do great work because it is an expression of who we are, a contribution of our unique talents and perspectives to a purpose larger than ourselves. Work done well creates ripples in the pond.

Transparency always wins. There are countless examples of choices that we all have in our professional lives of just how honest we want to be. We choose to be completely honest, even when that is uncomfortable, or even when it would lead to short-term negative consequences. We believe that transparency is a north star, and that acting transparently is always in the long-term best interests of achieving our mission.

We value diversity. People with different mindsets and experiences, working together, create better outcomes. This includes diversity of race and gender, as well as the diversity of academic backgrounds, socio-economic backgrounds, geographic backgrounds, ideologies, and interests.

Users are our best advocates. We market our products and services by working with amazing humans, making them incredibly happy, and asking them to spread the word. We go above and beyond for our clients / users to invest in our future growth.

We are humble. While we believe that we are building something exceptional, that knowledge does not make us feel proud, it makes us feel humble. It imbues us with a deep sense of responsibility towards our clients, coworkers, and the community at large.

We optimize for the long-term. While we pursue the mission with intense focus, we recognize that creating the change in the world that we wish to see will not happen overnight. We think, plan, and act for the long-term.

We work hard and go home. We take our responsibilities as parents, citizens, individuals, family members, and members of our various communities just as seriously as we take our commitments at work. When we are on, we are focused. When we are off, we are free to be fully disconnected.

We are human. We are human beings innovating in a shared service to a mission. We structure our compensation and benefits, work hours and location policies, work and management styles, and employee agreements to support this fundamental human-ness. We bring our whole selves to work, and we recognize that our identities extend beyond the work that we do.

We believe in moving up the stack. We believe that all team members should seek to replace themselves on an ongoing basis by building processes, technology, and documentation that obviate their existing work. We have an abundance mindset: there is always more, and more valuable, work to do. Moving up the stack presents growth opportunities for both the individual and the team.

Values are more important than success. We are not interested in success absent the values in this document. We have strongly held opinions on how a company should be built and these are non-negotiable. We do not believe that these opinions are an absolute truth, but they are an absolute truth for us.

Employee benefits

Learn about the employee benefits and perks provided at dbt Labs.

View benefits

Disability insurance

We provide long term and short term disability coverage to all US-based employees at no cost.

Healthcare benefits

We provide high-quality medical, dental, and vision benefits to all employees and their dependents.

Flexibility

We’re a distributed team and place a premium on trust. Communicate. Get your work done. Live your life.

Unlimited vacation

Take a spontaneous trip or plan a dream staycation. Unlimited vacation means that you can stop budgeting your PTO.

View dbt Labs's employee benefits
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dbt Labs

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