Lead Data Platform Engineer/Architect

About Niche

Niche is the leader in school search. Our mission is to make researching and enrolling in schools easy, transparent, and free. With in-depth profiles on every school and college in America, 140 million reviews and ratings, and powerful search tools, we help millions of people find the right school for them. We also help thousands of schools recruit more best-fit students, by highlighting what makes them great and making it easier to visit and apply.

Niche is all about finding where you belong, and that mission inspires how we operate every day. We want Niche to be a place where people truly enjoy working and can thrive professionally.

About The Role

We are looking for a Lead Data Platform Engineer / Architect who would provide their deep expertise and technical leadership as we build the next generation of Niche’s data platform. You’ll lead the architecture and development of a scalable data platform and capabilities that can handle the volume and complexity of data while ensuring data accuracy, availability, observability, security, and optimum performance. You’ll be developing and maintaining our centralized, governed, and certified data models and source of truths (DW) for consistent reporting internally and externally. You’ll also be instrumental in building out a scalable data sharing architecture for our partners to power our data licensing product. The ideal candidate will be a technical expert with solid experience and wins under their belt in building, improving and supporting large scale data platforms. This role will report to the Head of Data Engineering.

What You Will Do

During the First Month:

• Learn about Niche by meeting with various team members to learn more about our company through our Onboarding meetings
• Build strong relationships with data engineering team members, understand the day to day operating model, and stakeholders that we interact with on a daily basis.
• Begin discussions to understand our data platform vision, and key challenges. Develop early ideas towards the architecture of our platform.

Within 3 Months:

• Complete a detailed assessment of the current state of our data platform that covers tech stack, data architecture, security, quality, and design of pipelines.
• Deliver first versions of the data platform engineering best practices, and standards documentation for the data engineering team; ensure in line with wider engineering standards.
• Identify areas for improving data platform engineering processes and streamline data pipelines, making them more efficient.
• Incinitial data quality tooling and framework to improve data accuracy, consistency, and completeness.

Within 6 Months:

• Lead the development of data platform, building out data pipelines, and data warehouse layers. Ensure the platform can handle the scale and complexity of data efficiently.
• Enforce data engineering practices, incorporating data modeling into our workflow, standardized ETL/ELT processes, architecture and design patterns, and core data warehousing principles.
• Stay updated on emerging data technologies and start implementing innovative solutions to address business needs.

Within 12 Months:

• Contributions have led to significant progress in implementing the long-term data platform strategy and increasing the quality and accessibility of data.
• We have strengthened data governance practices, ensuring that data is governed, certified, and available as a source of truth for reporting.

What We Are Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Information Systems, a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience in data engineering, software engineering, or a related field, with a minimum of 3 years as a senior level engineer with data platform architecture experience.
• Demonstrated experience of building, optimizing, and supporting large scale data platforms.
• Software engineering mindset, leading with the principles of source control, infrastructure as code, testing, modularity, automation, CI/CD, and observability.
• Strong knowledge and understanding of the modern data platform, and its key components - ingestion, transformation, curation, quality, governance, and delivery.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of source systems, building data pipelines to ingest both streaming and batch data, and delivering clean data for downstream usage in reporting, analytics, data science, and applications.
• Knowledge of data modeling techniques (3NF, Dimensional, Vault), data lake, data warehouse, data mart, design patterns (lambda, kappa, medallion, etc.), and agile development.
• High degree of proficiency in Python, Shell Scripts, SQL, Snowflake, Postgres, DBT, Airflow, Docker, Kubernetes, Git, Kafka, and AWS, or equivalent stack.
• Self-starter, analytical problem solver, highly attentive to detail, effective communicator, and obsessed with good documentation.
• Eagerness in training, mentoring, and coaching other data engineers in the team, and passion for continuous learning and innovation.

Are you excited about the position and its responsibilities, but hesitant because your experience doesn't align 100% with the posted requirements? We believe you are more than a resume, so go for it! You won’t want to miss the opportunity to play a part in helping students find where they belong.

Compensation

Our national target base salary range is $131,000-$164,000, plus participation in our Annual Bonus and Stock Option Program. Base compensation will be commensurate with experience and skills.

At Niche, our Total Rewards Philosophy is centered around creating a workplace environment that attracts, motivates, and retains top talent by providing a comprehensive and competitive rewards package. This philosophy is built on the principles of performance-based compensation, best-in-class benefits and work-life balance, and employee well-being.

WhyNiche?

• We are a fully flexible workforce empowering our employees to choose to work remotely, in our Pittsburgh office or whatever combination suits you
• Full time, salaried position with competitive compensation in a fast-growing company
• Best-in-class 100% paid employee health plan, including vision and dental and supplemental coverage
• Flexible Paid Time Off Policy
• Stipend that allows you to build your work from home office in a style and function that suits your personal preferences
• Parental leave for all employees (12 weeks fully paid) in addition to short term disability for birthing parents
• Meaningful 401(k) with employer match
• Your ideas and work will make an immediate impact on our company and millions of users
• You will join a team that cares about you, our mission, our work - and celebrates our wins together!

Niche will only employ those who are legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future for this opening.

We are currently hiring in states where we currently have employees: AZ, CA, CT, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MO, NE, NH, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, DC, WV.

Candidates only. No recruiters or agencies, please. Sorry, we do not offer relocation assistance.

Niche is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. Therefore, we provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law.

All interviews are being held remotely. If there are preparations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please let us know.