Staff Data Engineer

Staff Data Engineer – Streaming Data Systems

Location: REMOTE

Team: Data Platform

Level: Staff

About the Role

We are looking for a Staff Data Engineer with deep expertise in streaming data architectures to drive the evolution of our real-time data platform. This role is highly technical and hands-on — ideal for someone who thrives on solving complex scaling challenges, architecting low-latency systems, and leading teams to deliver high-quality streaming data solutions that power analytics, machine learning, and core product features.

As a senior member of the data engineering team, you’ll shape the technical direction of our streaming ecosystem and help define best practices for how data flows through our organization.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead the design and implementation of scalable, fault-tolerant streaming data pipelines using platforms such as Apache Kafka, Flink, Spark Structured Streaming, or Kinesis.
• Evolve the real-time data platform to support new business use cases, ensuring low-latency data delivery and high reliability.
• Partner with data scientists, product engineers, and platform teams to design data models and streaming APIs that enable real-time insights and decision-making.
• Drive data quality, observability, and governance across streaming systems, including schema management, lineage, and monitoring.
• Optimize pipeline performance, reliability, and cost across multiple environments (cloud and on-prem).
• Lead code reviews, architecture reviews, and technical mentoring for other engineers.
• Establish and champion best practices for streaming data engineering, deployment automation, and CI/CD for data systems.
• Collaborate with platform teams to ensure data systems are secure, compliant, and highly available.

Qualifications

Required:

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering, with at least 3+ years in real-time or streaming systems.
• Deep expertise with Kafka (or equivalent message brokers), including schema registry, partitioning strategies, and consumer group management.
• Hands-on experience with stream processing frameworks (e.g., Apache Flink, Spark Structured Streaming, Kafka Streams).
• Strong proficiency in Python, Scala, or Java, and familiarity with data pipeline orchestration tools (Airflow, Dagster, etc.).
• Solid understanding of distributed systems, networking, and storage.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and managed streaming services (Kinesis, Pub/Sub, etc.).
• Familiarity with data modeling, lakehouse architectures, and batch + streaming integration.

Preferred:

• Experience building exactly-once or idempotent streaming pipelines.
• Knowledge of data governance, lineage, and observability tools (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, OpenLineage).
• Prior experience leading a data platform or mentoring senior engineers.
• Exposure to machine learning feature pipelines or event-driven microservices.

What You’ll Bring

• A strong sense of ownership and curiosity for optimizing data flow in complex environments.
• Ability to think strategically while delivering practical, scalable solutions.
• Leadership in driving cross-team collaboration and influencing architectural direction.
• Passion for helping teams move from batch-oriented thinking to event-driven design.

Why Join Us

You’ll play a pivotal role in building the next generation of our data platform, enabling real-time insights that directly impact business outcomes. We invest in engineering excellence, autonomy, and continuous learning — and we’re looking for a Staff Data Engineer who shares that vision.

Benefits and Compensation listed vary based on the location of your employment and the nature of your employment with SailPoint.

As a part of the total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the SailPoint Corporate Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission, along with potential eligibility for equity participation. SailPoint maintains broad salary ranges for its roles to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, market conditions and locations, as well as reflect SailPoint’s differing products, industries, and lines of business. Candidates are typically placed into the range based on the preceding factors as well as internal peer equity. We estimate the base salary, for US-based employees, will be in this range from (min-mid-max, USD):

$127,800 - $182,500 - $237,300

Base salaries for employees based in other locations are competitive for the employee’s home location.

Benefits Overview

1. Health and wellness coverage: Medical, dental, and vision insurance

2. Disability coverage: Short-term and long-term disability

3. Life protection: Life insurance and Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D)

4. Additional life coverage options: Supplemental life insurance for employees, spouses, and children

5. Flexible spending accounts for health care, and dependent care; limited purpose flexible spending account

6. Financial security: 401(k) Savings and Investment Plan with company matching

7. Time off benefits: Flexible vacation policy

8. Holidays: 8 paid holidays annually

9. Sick leave

10. Parental support: Paid parental leave

11. Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and Care Counselors

12. Voluntary benefits: Legal Assistance, Critical Illness, Accident, Hospital Indemnity and Pet Insurance options

13. Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution

SailPoint is an equal opportunity employer and we welcome all qualified candidates to apply to join our team. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law.

Alternative methods of applying for employment are available to individuals unable to submit an application through this site because of a disability. Contact applicationassistance@sailpoint.com or mail to 11120 Four Points Dr, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78726, to discuss reasonable accommodations. NOTE: Any unsolicited resumes sent by candidates or agencies to this email will not be considered for current openings at SailPoint.

About Us

SailPoint is a leading provider of identity security for the modern enterprise. Enterprise security starts and ends with identities and their access, yet the ability to manage and secure identities today has moved well beyond human capacity. Using a foundation of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the SailPoint Identity Security Platform delivers the right level of access to the right identities and resources at the right time—matching the scale, velocity, and environmental needs of today’s cloud-oriented enterprise. Our intelligent, autonomous, and integrated solutions put identity security at the core of digital business operations, enabling even the most complex organizations across the globe to build a security foundation capable of defending against today’s most pressing threats.

Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement

The employment policy of SailPoint is to provide equal opportunity to all persons, and it is SailPoint’s policy to take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.

It is SailPoint’s policy to recruit, hire, train and promote qualified individuals in all job titles, and ensure that all other personnel actions are administered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, military and/or veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status, and we will ensure that all employment decisions are based only on valid job requirements. SailPoint does not discriminate on the basis of national origin or citizenship status as provided under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Employees and applicants shall not be subjected to harassment, intimidation, threats, coercion, or discrimination because they have engaged in or may engage in any of the following activities:

• Filing a complaint;
• Assisting or participating in an investigation, compliance evaluation, hearing, or any other activity related to the administration of the affirmative action provisions of Section 503, VEVRAA, or any other Federal, State or local law requiring equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities or protected veterans;
• Opposing any act or practice made unlawful by Section 503, VEVRAA, or their implementing regulations in this part, or any other Federal, State or local law requiring equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities or protected veterans; or
• Exercising any other right protected by section 503, VEVRAA or their implementing regulations.

SailPoint will also provide reasonable accommodation to known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified employee or applicant for employment, unless the accommodation would impose undue hardship on the operation of our business.

SailPoint’s affirmative action program contains an audit and reporting system which enables us to measure the effectiveness of our program, indicate any need for remedial action, determine the degree to which our objectives have been attained, determine whether protected veterans and individuals with disabilities had had the opportunity to participate in company-sponsored activities, measure our compliance with the program’s specific obligations, and document actions taken to comply with these obligations.