Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Empower is the hiring organization. The Senior Data Reliability Engineer will own the reliability, stability, and operational excellence of an AWS-based data platform, troubleshoot production data systems, and ensure resilient, performant data pipelines and analytics platforms. The role also involves incident response, root cause analysis, monitoring, automation, disaster recovery, and collaboration with engineering teams.
Responsibilities
- Own the reliability and stability of production data pipelines and data platform services
- Diagnose and resolve data pipeline failures, delays, and data quality issues in production environments
- Investigate issues across distributed data systems (e.g., Spark/EMR workloads, ingestion pipelines, warehouse performance)
- Lead or support incident response, including triage, mitigation, and long-term resolution
- Perform root cause analysis (RCA) and implement durable fixes to prevent recurrence
- Define and improve data SLAs (freshness, latency, completeness) and ensure adherence
- Design and enhance monitoring, alerting, and observability for data systems
- Develop automation and tooling to reduce operational toil and improve system resilience
- Contribute to disaster recovery (DR) and resiliency planning, including backup validation and recovery workflows
- Partner with engineering teams to improve pipeline design, reliability, and operational readiness
- Create and maintain runbooks, SOPs, and operational documentation
- Participate in occasional off-hours support for production data systems when required
- Participate in an on-call rotation; occasional change windows outside business hours to support safe releases and resiliency drills
- This job operates in a professional office environment
Skills
- Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa at this time, including CPT/OPT
- * Minimum 5 years of experience working with production data platforms in AWS environments
- * Prior experience building data pipelines and seeing them through production, including exposure to real-world failures and operational challenges
- * Strong experience with Python and SQL in real data systems
- * Hands-on experience troubleshooting distributed data processing systems (e.g., Spark/EMR, Redshift, streaming systems)
- * Proven ability to debug and resolve production issues in data pipelines and data platforms
- * Experience with AWS data services (such as EMR, Redshift, DynamoDB, S3, or similar)
- * Experience handling production incidents and performing root cause analysis
- * Strong problem-solving mindset and ability to work through ambiguous production issues
- * Participate in an on-call rotation; occasional change windows outside business hours to support safe releases and resiliency drills
- For remote and hybrid positions you will be required to provide reliable high-speed internet with a wired connection as well as a place in your home to work with limited disruption. You must have reliable connectivity from an internet service provider that is fiber, cable or DSL internet. Other necessary computer equipment, will be provided. You may be required to work in the office if you do not have an adequate home work environment and the required internet connection
- * Experience handling real-world data issues such as pipeline delays or failures
- * Experience with backfills and reprocessing
- * Experience with late-arriving or incomplete data
- * Experience improving observability and alerting specifically for data systems
- * Experience influencing or guiding data pipeline reliability and operational practices
- * Exposure to streaming/event-driven systems (Kafka, Kinesis, CDC patterns)
- * Experience with disaster recovery, backup validation, and resiliency testing
- * Strong communication during incidents with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Benefits
- Flexible work environment
- Fluid career paths
- Internal mobility
- Medical, dental, vision and life insurance
- Retirement savings – 401(k) plan with generous company matching contributions (up to 6%), financial advisory services, potential company discretionary contribution, and a broad investment lineup
- Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250/year
- Business-casual environment that includes the option to wear jeans
- Generous paid time off upon hire – including a paid time off program plus ten paid company holidays and three floating holidays each calendar year
- Paid volunteer time — 16 hours per calendar year
- Leave of absence programs – including paid parental leave, paid short- and long-term disability, and Family and Medical Leave (FMLA)
- Business Resource Groups (BRGs) – BRGs facilitate inclusion and collaboration across our business internally and throughout the communities where we live, work and play. BRGs are open to all.
- Other necessary computer equipment will be provided.
Company Overview