Senior Data Platform Engineer

What You’ll Actually Do

As a Senior Data Platform Engineer, you will architect and run high-load, production-grade data pipelines where correctness and latency are paramount. You will design resilient systems that can gracefully handle schema changes, reprocessing, and partial failures, while also taking full ownership of data availability, freshness, and trust beyond just pipeline success.

• Architect and run high-load, production-grade data pipelines where correctness and latency matter.
• Design systems that survive schema changes, reprocessing, and partial failures.
• Own data availability, freshness, and trust - not just pipeline success.
• Make hard calls: accuracy vs cost, speed vs consistency, rebuild vs patch.
• Build guardrails so downstream consumers (Analysts, Product, Ops) don’t break.
• Improve observability: monitoring, alerts, data quality checks, SLAs.
• Partner closely with backend engineers, data analysts, and Product - no handoffs, shared ownership.
• Debug incidents, own RCA, and make sure the same class of failure doesn’t return.

This is a hands-on IC role with platform-level responsibility.

What You Bring

To succeed in this Senior Data Platform Engineer role, you will need extensive experience in data or backend engineering within real production environments, coupled with a deep understanding of analytical databases and event-driven systems.

• 5+ years in data or backend engineering on real production systems.
• Strong experience with columnar analytical databases (ClickHouse, Snowflake, BigQuery, similar).
• Experience with event-driven / streaming systems (Kafka, pub/sub, CDC, etc.).
• Strong SQL + at least one general-purpose language (Python, Java, Scala).
• You think in failure modes, not happy paths.
• You explain why something works - and when it shouldn’t be used.

Bonus: You’ve rebuilt or fixed a data system that failed in production.

How We Work

Playson values reliability, ownership, pragmatic trade-offs, direct communication, and a unified team approach to system development, fostering an environment where practical solutions and clear responsibilities drive success.

• Reliability > elegance. Correct data beats clever data.
• Ownership > tickets. You run what you build.
• Trade-offs > dogma. Context matters.
• Direct > polite. We fix problems, not dance around them.
• One team, one system. No silos.

What We Offer

We provide a fully remote work environment, unlimited vacation, performance bonuses, comprehensive medical insurance, a dedicated learning budget, and a culture of high trust and autonomy with minimal bureaucracy.

• Fully remote.
• Unlimited vacation + paid sick leave.
• Quarterly performance bonuses.
• Medical insurance for you and your partner.
• Learning budget (courses, conferences, certifications).
• High trust, high autonomy.
• Zero bureaucracy. Real engineering problems.

Apply if you see data platforms as systems to be engineered - not pipelines to babysit.

Key skills/competency

• Data Pipeline Architecture
• High-load Systems
• System Design
• Data Availability & Trust
• Observability & Monitoring
• SQL Proficiency
• Python/Java/Scala
• Columnar Databases (ClickHouse, Snowflake)
• Event-Driven Systems (Kafka)
• Incident Management & RCA