Senior Manager, Data Engineering

About the role

In this pivotal position, you will oversee a team dedicated to ensuring the integrity, quality, efficiency, and speed of Dropbox's core data systems. This role requires a blend of technical expertise and leadership, as you will guide the development of data pipelines and products that are essential for informed decision-making across various departments, including Product, Go-to-Market, Finance, and the CTO organization.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Foster a robust culture centered around data quality by implementing lineage tracking, freshness monitoring, anomaly detection, and metrics that focus on outcomes.
• Spearhead the creation of a self-service analytics platform that empowers partner teams, thereby minimizing the need for custom engineering solutions.
• Oversee the economic aspects of the data platform, concentrating on optimizing compute and storage expenses while ensuring system reliability.
• Collaborate closely with teams in Data Science, Business Intelligence Engineering, Analytics, and Product to establish semantic layers and data standards.
• Enforce stringent engineering practices, which include conducting code reviews, implementing testing protocols, managing CI/CD processes for data, and coordinating incident responses.
• Mentor and nurture a team of data engineers, promoting a culture of ownership, accountability, and technical excellence.
• Engage with stakeholders to ensure alignment on data quality and reliability goals across diverse teams.
• Drive initiatives that enhance the observability and management of data service level agreements, lineage, and incident management for critical data systems.

Requirements

• A minimum of 8 years of experience in data engineering or backend/data infrastructure roles, with a track record of increasing responsibilities, ideally in high-volume settings.
• At least 3 years of experience in a management role, focusing on team development, coaching, and performance management.
• A strong technical foundation in constructing and maintaining large-scale batch and streaming data pipelines, utilizing technologies such as Spark, dbt, and Airflow.
• Proven experience with contemporary data warehousing or lakehouse architectures, including Databricks, Snowflake, or BigQuery.
• Demonstrated ability to manage data service level agreements, observability, lineage, and incident management for essential data systems.
• Solid grasp of data modeling principles, with the capability to design semantic layers and data contracts for widespread use.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to unify diverse teams around objectives related to data quality and reliability.

Nice to have

• Experience in developing self-service data or analytics platforms that enhance user independence.
• Familiarity with the integration of AI coding tools into engineering workflows.
• A proven history of optimizing compute and storage cost efficiency while maintaining system reliability.
• Knowledge of modern practices in data governance, privacy, and access control.
• Experience working within a pod or embedded model that supports multiple business units.

Skills & tools

• Spark
• dbt
• Airflow
• Databricks
• Snowflake
• BigQuery

Practical notes

For candidates located in US Zone 2, the compensation ranges from $202,700 to $274,300 annually. For those in US Zone 3, the salary ranges from $180,200 to $243,800 annually. This position may require approximately 5-10% travel for team gatherings. The total rewards package includes a base salary, participation in a corporate bonus program, and stock grants (RSUs). Compensation is determined based on the employee's zip code, and candidates from US Zone 1 are not eligible for this role. US Zone 2 encompasses states such as California (excluding the San Francisco metro area), Colorado, Connecticut (excluding the New York City metro area), Delaware, Illinois (Chicago metro), Indiana (Chicago metro), Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (Chicago metro), New Hampshire, New Jersey (excluding the New York City metro area), New York (excluding the New York City metro area), Oregon, Pennsylvania (D.C. metro), Pennsylvania (excluding the New York City metro area), Texas (Austin metro), Virginia (D.C. metro), Washington (excluding Seattle metro), Washington D.C. metro, West Virginia (D.C. metro), and Wisconsin (Chicago metro). US Zone 3 includes all other locations within the United States.