Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Zip is a global Buy Now, Pay Later company providing financial solutions for millions of customers and merchant partners. The Senior Data Engineer will design, build, and scale the Data & AI Platform supporting analytics, machine learning, Generative AI, and Agentic AI, while driving data architecture, reliability, governance, and engineering best practices.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and scale Zip's enterprise Data & AI Platform supporting analytics, machine learning, Generative AI, and Agentic AI initiatives
- Develop scalable data pipelines and architectures for structured, unstructured, batch, and real-time data workloads
- Build AI-ready data products, semantic models, and retrieval capabilities that enable intelligent agents and AI-powered applications
- Design and optimize vector search, hybrid search, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) capabilities to improve AI effectiveness and user experiences
- Implement streaming and event-driven solutions that support near real-time business insights, operational intelligence, fraud detection, and risk monitoring
- Establish engineering best practices for data modeling, testing, observability, governance, security, and platform reliability
- Drive self-service and automation capabilities that improve developer productivity and accelerate time-to-insight
- Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver trusted, high-quality data solutions that support critical business and AI initiatives
- Mentor engineers, influence architecture decisions, and help define the future direction of Zip's data platform
Skills
- 8+ years of experience designing, building, and operating enterprise-scale data platforms
- Deep expertise with modern cloud data platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, BigQuery, Redshift, or similar technologies
- Advanced SQL and Python skills with strong experience in data modeling, ELT/ETL development, dbt, and orchestration frameworks such as Airflow, Dagster, or equivalent
- Experience building scalable streaming and event-driven architectures using technologies such as Kafka, Azure Event Hubs, Spark, or similar platforms
- Strong understanding of modern data architecture patterns, including dimensional modeling, semantic layers, data governance, metadata management, and platform observability
- Experience supporting AI and machine learning workloads through AI-ready data models, vector search, metadata enrichment, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and knowledge retrieval systems
- Experience with modern lakehouse technologies and open table formats such as Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, or similar technologies
- Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (Azure preferred; AWS or Google Cloud Platform also acceptable)
- Strong engineering mindset with experience in testing, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and operational excellence
- Proven ability to lead technical initiatives, mentor engineers, and collaborate effectively across technical and business teams
- Strong sense of ownership and accountability for data accuracy, consistency, reliability, and quality
- Experience building enterprise AI platforms, Agentic AI solutions, or LLM-powered applications
- Experience integrating enterprise LLM platforms such as Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini
- Familiarity with vector databases like pinecone, weaviate etc. and AI search technologies, MLOps/LLMOps, and modern AI infrastructure
- Experience implementing data governance, metadata, lineage, and data catalog solutions
- Experience in fintech, payments, procurement, risk, compliance, or enterprise SaaS environments
Benefits
- Remote-first opportunity for US-based employees with the option to work in-person out of our Manhattan office.
- Flexible working culture
- Incentive programs
- Unlimited PTO
- Generous paid parental leave
- Leading family support policies
- Company-sponsored 401k match
- Learning and wellness subscription stipend
- Beautiful Union Square office with a casual dress code
- Industry-leading, employer-sponsored insurance for you and your dependents, with several 100% Zip-covered choices available
- A bonus and/or commission awards may be included in the total compensation package.
Company Overview