Tekion is disrupting the automotive industry with its cloud-native platform, connecting OEMs, retailers, and consumers using cutting-edge technology like AI and machine learning. This Staff Software Engineer (DPE) role is crucial for architecting and delivering internal frameworks for data ingestion, transformation, observability, and self-serve analytics. The role involves building scalable, multi-tenant ingestion pipelines, serving layers on Trino, and robust tooling to ensure data quality and platform health.

Must Have

• Design and implement foundational frameworks for ingestion, orchestration, schema validation, and metadata management.
• Build robust, scalable CDC pipelines using Debezium integrated with Kafka and Spark.
• Develop internal tooling to standardize and accelerate data ingestion, transformation, and publishing workflows.
• Optimize data serving layers powered by Trino, including metadata syncing, security filtering, and performance tuning.
• Partner with SRE and Infra teams to build autoscaling, self-healing, and cost-optimized Spark jobs on AWS EMR.
• Implement observability features (logs, metrics, alerts) for critical platform services and data pipelines.
• Define and enforce standards for schema evolution, lineage tracking, and data governance.
• Automate platform operations using CI/CD pipelines, metadata-driven configurations, and infrastructure-as-code.
• 8-12 years of experience in data platform, infrastructure, or backend systems engineering roles.
• Strong systems engineering fundamentals (distributed systems, fault tolerance, performance tuning).
• Expertise in Apache Spark with production experience on AWS EMR.
• Experience building or managing CDC pipelines using tools like Debezium, Kafka Connect.
• Familiarity with streaming systems such as Kafka, Kinesis, or Flink.
• Experience serving data using Trino or Presto in a multi-tenant environment.
• Proficiency in Python, Java or Scala, and Unix/Linux systems.
• Strong understanding of open table formats like Delta Lake or Apache Iceberg.
• Exposure to infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and CI/CD automation.

Good to Have

• Platform-first thinker (designs systems for scale, abstraction, and reusability).
• Builder's bias (values automation, clean interfaces, and measurable SLAs).
• Deep collaborator (partners well across Data, Infra, and Engineering teams).
• Operational discipline (understands the impact of monitoring, logging, and reliability).

Staff Software Engineer (DPE)

About Tekion:

Positively disrupting an industry that has not seen any innovation in over 50 years, Tekion has challenged the paradigm with the first and fastest cloud-native automotive platform that includes the revolutionary Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC) for retailers, Automotive Enterprise Cloud (AEC) for manufacturers and other large automotive enterprises and Automotive Partner Cloud (APC) for technology and industry partners. Tekion connects the entire spectrum of the automotive retail ecosystem through one seamless platform. The transformative platform uses cutting-edge technology, big data, machine learning, and AI to seamlessly bring together OEMs, retailers/dealers and consumers. With its highly configurable integration and greater customer engagement capabilities, Tekion is enabling the best automotive retail experiences ever. Tekion employs close to 3,000 people across North America, Asia and Europe.

Why This Role Matters

We're looking for a Data Platform Engineer with deep systems engineering expertise and a passion for building reusable infrastructure. You'll help architect and deliver the internal frameworks that power data ingestion, transformation, observability, and self-serve analytics across the company. Your work will be central to enabling scalable, multi-tenant ingestion pipelines (including CDC via Debezium), serving layers built on Trino, and robust tooling that lets teams move fast without compromising on data quality or platform health.

What Makes This Opportunity Unique

• Build platform tooling for multi-region, multi-tenant data infrastructure using modern open-source and cloud-native technologies.
• Lead engineering efforts around CDC pipelines using Debezium, enabling reliable change capture from application databases.
• Shape the developer experience for data engineers, from ingestion to publishing and consumption, with metadata-aware automation.
• Drive the evolution of data serving infrastructure using Trino and open table formats like Delta Lake or Iceberg.
• Work at the intersection of data engineering, infrastructure, and platform strategy, directly influencing core architectural decisions.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement foundational frameworks for ingestion, orchestration, schema validation, and metadata management.
• Build robust, scalable pipelines for Change Data Capture (CDC) using Debezium integrated with Kafka and Spark.
• Develop internal tooling to standardize and accelerate data ingestion, transformation, and publishing workflows.
• Optimize data serving layers powered by Trino, including metadata syncing, security filtering, and performance tuning.
• Partner with SRE and Infra teams to build autoscaling, self-healing, and cost-optimized Spark jobs on AWS EMR.
• Implement observability features — logs, metrics, alerts — for critical platform services and data pipelines.
• Define and enforce standards for schema evolution, lineage tracking, and data governance.
• Automate platform operations using CI/CD pipelines, metadata-driven configurations, and infrastructure-as-code.

Desired Skills & Experience

• 8+–12 years of experience in data platform, infrastructure, or backend systems engineering roles.
• Strong systems engineering fundamentals — distributed systems, fault tolerance, performance tuning.
• Expertise in Apache Spark with production experience on AWS EMR.
• Experience building or managing CDC pipelines using tools like Debezium, Kafka Connect, or custom connectors. Familiarity with streaming systems such as Kafka, Kinesis, or Flink.
• Experience serving data using Trino or Presto in a multi-tenant environment.
• Proficiency in Python, Java or Scala, and Unix/Linux systems.
• Strong understanding of open table formats like Delta Lake or Apache Iceberg.
• Exposure to infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and CI/CD automation.

Preferred Mindset

• Platform-first thinker — designs systems for scale, abstraction, and reusability.
• Builder's bias — values automation, clean interfaces, and measurable SLAs.
• Deep collaborator — partners well across Data, Infra, and Engineering teams.
• Operational discipline — understands the impact of monitoring, logging, and reliability.

Tekion is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, victim of violence or having a family member who is a victim of violence, the intersectionality of two or more protected categories, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

For more information on our privacy practices, please refer to our Applicant Privacy Notice here.

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