Engineering Manager, Data Platform

As Engineering Manager for the Data Platform team, you'll lead a team of engineers building and operating the infrastructure that powers data ingestion, governance, storage, processing, and access across FloQast's product and analytics systems. This is a deeply technical role — roughly half your time is writing code, designing systems, and making architecture calls alongside your team. The other half is growing the people doing that work: hiring, developing, unblocking, and setting direction. You've spent years in data infrastructure and you still love the work. You can reason through a Spark shuffle problem, pick apart a slow Iceberg compaction job, and make a principled call between PySpark and Scala Spark on a real workload. You've run Structured Streaming pipelines, operated Kafka at scale, and debugged the Spark UI until the stage times made sense. But you've also learned that technical impact compounds through people — that the systems you architect matter less than the engineers you develop. You've managed before, or you've been the informal lead that everyone went to, and you're ready to own it fully. At FloQast, you'll apply that combination across our full lakehouse stack. FloLake runs on Iceberg over S3, orchestrated through MWAA, cataloged in AWS Glue, and queried via Trino and Athena. Kafka on MSK moves data through the hot path. The platform serves 30,000+ tenants. You'll hold technical authority on data compute and architecture decisions while building the team that executes them — and you'll do both at the same time, not in phases. \n What You'll Do As a technical contributor (≈50%) - Write production code and lead architectural design on the data platform — pipelines, storage layers, access APIs, and observability infrastructure - Own technical decisions on Spark job structure, Iceberg table management, and streaming architecture on MSK/Kafka - Review code at a level that raises the bar, not just catches bugs — you shape how the team thinks about distributed systems - Drive modernization and tooling choices (Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, Trino, and what comes next) with a bias toward operational simplicity and long-term maintainability - Contribute to data governance: quality frameworks, lineage, access control, and compliance (GDPR, SOC2) As a team lead (≈50%) - Work shoulder-to-shoulder with engineers on the hardest problems — you're in the design docs, the code reviews, and the incident calls, not observing from the side - Give engineers real feedback in the moment: on a PR, in a design review, after a demo — not just in quarterly check-ins - Spot where an engineer is stuck or growing and act on it directly, whether that means pairing with them, reshaping their scope, or getting out of their way - Own the team's roadmap by understanding the technical work well enough to sequence it right and push back when priorities don't hold up - Run recruiting as a technical process — define what good looks like for this stack, write the bar-raising questions, and close candidates because you can speak credibly to the work - Handle the coordination and stakeholder management so the team doesn't have to — you're the buffer that lets engineers stay deep What You'll Bring - 12+ years of software engineering experience in data infrastructure, distributed systems, or backend platform engineering - Hands-on production experience with Spark — you can tune jobs, understand the Catalyst optimizer, and have strong opinions on PySpark vs. Scala Spark - Familiarity with the modern lakehouse stack: Iceberg, Kafka/MSK, Airflow/MWAA, Trino or Athena, and cloud-native AWS services - Experience with Snowflake, dbt, and building data access APIs or platform tooling - 2+ years of engineering management or formal tech lead experience — you've done performance reviews, owned a hiring loop, or led a team through a significant technical program - Comfort holding both hats: you can spend a morning in code review and an afternoon in a difficult growth conversation, and you're good at both - Strong communicator who can make technical trade-offs legible to product and business stakeholders - Experience in a startup or high-growth SaaS environment - Exposure to AI/ML data pipelines or real-time analytics is a plus \n #LI-Hyrbid #LI-JM1 This job posting is for our Senior Staff Engineer, Data the base pay range for this position is $188,000 - $282,000. Compensation is not limited to base salary. FloQast values our Total Rewards, and offers a competitive and elaborate Benefits Package including, but not limited to, Medical, Dental, Vision, Family Forming benefits, Life & Disability Insurance, and Unlimited Vacation. FloQast reserves the right to amend, change, alter, and revise pay ranges and benefits offerings at any time. All applicants acknowledge that by applying to this position you understand that this specific pay range is contingent upon meeting the qualifications and requirements of the role, and for the successful completion of the interview selection and process. It is at the Company's discretion to determine what pay is provided to a candidate within the range associated with the role. About FloQast: FloQast is the leading AI-powered Accounting Transformation Platform, uniquely built by former accountants for accountants. We automate complex, recurring accounting workflows—transforming preparers into strategic reviewers and relieving accountants from tedious manual work. Our cloud-based solution is trusted by over 3,500 world-class accounting teams, including Lululemon, Doordash, and the MLB, to drive collaboration and financial accuracy. Driven by a mission to continuously elevate the profession, FloQast is redefining both the practice and the perception of accounting on a global scale. Our values act as a guiding compass, shaping every decision we make, and are non-negotiable, particularly in our hiring process. Alongside our employees, partners, and customers, we embody these values every day: Unwaveringly Authentic Ambitious with Integrity Empowered to Grow Committed to Collaboration Customer Obsessed in All Ways Here’s Why You Should Apply - What is engineering working on? Our FQ Engineering Blog showcases a number of our recent efforts straight from the engineers working on them. Check it out! FloQast is regularly rated as a Best Place to Work! - Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021 - Best Places to Work by LA Business Journal since 2017 (that’s 9 years!) - Built In’s ​​Best Place to Work in Los Angeles 7 years in a row! Because we are Customer Obsessed in All Ways, check out what our customers have to say about FloQast on G2 Crowd . If this aligns closely with what you are looking for, hit “Apply” and come join our growing team! FloQast, Inc is committed to operating fair and unbiased recruitment procedures allowing all applicants an equal opportunity for employment, free from discrimination on the basis of religion, race, sex, age, sexual orientation, disability, color, ethnic or national origin, or any other classification as may be protected by applicable law. We aim to recruit the right people for the jobs we have to offer, and to assess applications on the basis of relevant skills, education, and experience. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives. We are an equal opportunity employer and strive to provide a professional and welcoming workplace for all employees. Link to FloQast Recruiting AI Usage Policy