Technical Lead, Data Engineering and Digital Fraud Prevention

About Starbucks

From the beginning, Starbucks set out to be a different kind of company. One that not only celebrated coffee and the rich tradition, but that also brought a feeling of connection. We are known for developing extraordinary leaders who share this passion and are guided by their service to others.

Role Overview

We are seeking a versatile Technical Lead, Data Engineering and Digital Fraud Prevention to drive and scale delivery across our Distributed Systems API and Data Engineering Platform teams. This is a highly cross-cutting role operating at the intersection of real-time distributed systems, data platforms, and the application of LLM-powered and agentic workflows within production environments.

This role is ideal for a technical leader who thrives in ambiguous problem spaces, can operate across architectural boundaries, and enjoys amplifying the impact of multiple teams through strong technical direction and execution.

As a Technical Lead, Data Engineering and Digital Fraud Prevention, you will…

Engineering Leadership

• Provide technical leadership across two platform domains: real-time distributed APIs and data engineering platforms.
• Contribute hands-on where it matters most, focusing on critical paths, prototypes, and high-leverage areas.
• Lead architecture, design, and delivery of scalable, reliable systems that serve critical internal and external consumers.
• Partner with engineering managers and product leaders to prioritize work, shape technical strategy, and align execution across teams.
• Lead complex initiatives that span multiple systems, services, and data pipelines.
• Establish and reinforce engineering best practices around reliability, scalability, observability, and operational excellence.
• Act as a key contributor to the team’s 1-2 year technical roadmap, helping define priorities, sequencing and strategic bets.
• Guide the practical application of LLM-powered and agentic workflows within platform capabilities, focusing on real business and developer impact.
• Act as a multiplier for the teams by mentoring engineers, unblocking delivery, and raising the technical bar.
• Partner with product and technical leaders to translate business requirements into secure, scalable technical solutions.

Delivery & Engineering Operations

• Facilitate core agile ceremonies including sprint planning, grooming, and daily stand-ups.
• Track and report team progress toward goals; escalate risks or blockers as needed.
• Partner with engineering leadership to surface delivery updates and team dynamics.
• Proactively identify and clear blockers via internal or cross-functional collaboration.
• Coordinate with peer teams to manage dependencies and align on shared outcomes.
• Monitor and help complete operational items like security patching and compliance work.
• Ensure alignment between team goals and backlog prioritization.
• Support a culture of continuous improvement through process iteration and refinement.
• Maintain visibility into team bandwidth and inform realistic capacity planning.

Qualifications

We’d Love To Hear From People With

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, including building and operating production systems at scale.
• 3+ years in data engineering, MLOps, or adjacent platform roles, delivering data/ML workflows to production.
• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL (pipelines, complex transformations, performance tuning on large datasets).
• Hands-on expertise with Databricks and Apache Spark and modern lake/lakehouse architectures.
• Experience designing and running resilient, highly available distributed systems.
• Production experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Practical experience implementing CI/CD for data platform workflows.
• Familiarity with cloud operational best practices in AWS and/or Azure, including security-minded operations.
• Experience with observability (monitoring/metrics and centralized logging; e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana).
• Proven Tech Lead delivery skills: lead and mentor engineers, drive agile execution, manage cross-team dependencies, remove blockers, and deliver across stakeholders.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across engineering, product, and partner teams.
• Proactive, detail-oriented, and execution-focused in fast-paced environment.
• Experience applying LLMs and agentic workflows to derive insights from data products (e.g., LLM-powered analytics, RAG over internal datasets/metadata, tool-using agents for investigation, and implementing evaluation/guardrails for reliability).
• Experience in regulated/compliance environments (e.g., PCI, SOX) and/or operating 24x7 cloud production systems.

Benefits

As a Starbucks partner, you (and your family) will have access to medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, and other voluntary insurance benefits. Partners have access to short-term and long-term disability, paid parental leave, family expansion reimbursement, paid vacation from date of hire*, sick time (accrued at 1 hour for every 25 hours worked), eight paid holidays, and two personal days per year. Starbucks also offers eligible partners participation in a 401(k) retirement plan with employer match, a discounted company stock program (S.I.P.), Starbucks equity program (Bean Stock), incentivized emergency savings, and financial well-being tools. Additionally, Starbucks offers 100% upfront tuition coverage for a first-time bachelor’s degree through Arizona State University’s online program via the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, student loan management resources, and access to other educational opportunities. You will also have access to backup care and DACA reimbursement. Starbucks will comply with any applicable state and local laws regarding employee leave benefits, including, but not limited to providing time off pursuant to the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, and in accordance with its plans and policies. This list is subject to change depending on collective bargaining in locations where partners have a certified bargaining representative. For additional information regarding partner perks and more detailed information about benefits, go to starbucksbenefits.com.

If you are working in CA, CO, IL, LA, ME, MA, NE, ND or RI, you will accrue vacation up to a maximum of 120 hours (190 in CA) for roles below director and 200 hours (316 in CA) for roles at director or above. For roles in other states, you will be granted vacation time starting at 120 hours annually for roles below director and 200 hours annually for roles director and above.

The actual base pay offered to the successful candidate will be based on multiple factors, including but not limited to job-related knowledge/skills, experience, geographical location, and internal equity. At Starbucks, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at the high end of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.

We believe we do our best work when we're together, which is why we're onsite four days a week.

Key skills/competency

• Data Engineering
• Distributed Systems
• API Design
• LLM-powered Workflows
• Apache Spark
• Databricks
• Kubernetes
• AWS/Azure Cloud
• Observability (Datadog, Grafana)
• Digital Fraud Prevention