Senior Data Engineer

Who We Are

Murmuration is a nonprofit organization that amplifies the power of civic engagement by providing data, digital tools, and research-driven insights to community-focused organizations so that together we can create an America where everyone can lead healthy, free, and dignified lives.

Every day, people are trying to shape our future for the better. Fighting for water that’s safe to drink. Schools that serve students equitably. Gun laws that make sense. And rallying people who care like we do. And yet too often, the skillful organizers working to mobilize communities lack access to technology that could supercharge their efforts. Knocking on every door instead of knowing which will open most easily. And going up against outside interests that have half the heart, but twice the tools.

In communities across America, Murmuration’s partners are leveraging our data, tools, and insights to help thousands of organizers orchestrate millions of individual people to do big things together. Demand big things together. To create the world they want. Together.

About the Position

The Senior Data Engineer is primarily responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining our application’s core data platform and ETL pipelines, ensuring feature delivery aligns with technical standards and project timelines while prioritizing product stability. Acting as a key individual contributor on their team, they take the lead on implementing complex projects, contributing to the design of our architecture and data pipelines, and mentor peers through code reviews, paired programming, and refinement sessions. Senior Data Engineers will directly contribute to our core data pipelines that power the Organizer application, which involves: streaming data, live entity resolution, and batch load processing. The Senior Data Engineer is expected to use their advanced knowledge of scalable systems and databases to drive performance improvement projects. The engineer will also work with other engineers and our Product Team across different teams and functional areas to lead and deliver complex user features. The work of this role will directly impact the ability of our users to make an impact in their communities and Murmuration’s ability to scale to support even more users.

Job Level:  IC4

What You’ll Do

• Develop software aligned with specifications & designs, ensuring code is well-tested, maintainable, and documented;
• Work autonomously with minimal oversight, delivering production-ready solutions that prioritize long-term maintainability and supportability;
• Take ownership over the delivery of select features, driving them to completion by breaking the implementation into smaller units, maintaining the team’s standard of excellence in delivery and ensuring all requirements are met;
• Have a strong understanding of the various key elements of the data platform and use this knowledge to act as a representative for the Data Platform Team when working with other engineering teams;
• Create, communicate, and defend design proposals to your team through engineering proposals, demo sessions, chapter meetings, and architecture reviews;
• Identify areas of improvement from a performance and/or a technical debt perspective within your team, and advocate for prioritization of this work; 
• Take an active role in contributing to your team’s Agile processes, including contributing to the writing and refining of tickets, participating in regular retrospectives on the team’s work, and demoing your work to the broader engineering org; and
• Support junior engineers through facilitating pull-request reviews for your team, paired programming sessions, and technical guidance on design & best practices.

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or relevant field (Note: Work experience can be substituted for degree requirements);
• 5+ years of experience as a Data/Backend/Software Engineer;
• Strong experience in both functional and object-oriented programing (e.g., Python, Scala, Java);
• Good experience with the AWS data stack (e.g., Lambda, ECS, Glue, Athena, EventBridge etc.);
• Experience with NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB, DynamoDB, Redis, Cassandra);
• Strong SQL experience/knowledge;
• Experience building large-scale streaming and batch data pipelines (e.g., Kafka Streams, Apache Flink, Spark Streaming, Spark SQL) with a focus on scalability, performance, accuracy, reliability, and traceability;
• Strong experience with a standard code repository (e.g., Git);
• Experience with DevOps, developing CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing;
• Good experience with data modeling and physical database design;
• Demonstrable design and development skills on large-scale data platform implementations;
• Experience supporting a production environment;
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to clearly and adequately define a position and defend it (in writing or verbally);
• Ability to clearly document a design, component, or workflow they have working knowledge of;
• Ability to take a complex implementation proposal and break it into smaller workable implementation components;
• Demonstrable skills both in working independently and in leading projects within a team environment; and
• Practical knowledge of software development lifecycle (SDLC) and agile methodologies.

Nice to Haves

• Experience with Entity Resolution;
• Experience with JavaScript;
• Demonstrable knowledge in the creation, use, and support of a document database like MongoDB;
• Demonstrable knowledge in the creation, use, and support of an OLAP database like Pinot and/or Snowflake;
• Advanced experience with CI/CD platforms and Infrastructure as Code technologies, such as AWS CDK or Terraform;
• Experience with container technologies, such as Docker or Kubernetes;
• Experience using Big Data technologies (e.g., Spark, Presto, Kafka);
• Experience with orchestration tools such as Airflow or Dagster;
• Experience with graph databases (e.g., Neo4j, Neptune); and/or
• Experience designing and building microservices (e.g., REST, GraphQL).

Talented Engineers come from all walks of life and career. If you are passionate about civic engagement and technology, please apply, even if you do not check every box!

Location and Compensation

The Senior Data Engineer role is a full-time, salaried position with a comprehensive benefits package (more detail below). It is based anywhere in the U.S. The starting salary range for this position is $144,000 - $166,000 and is commensurate with experience. This pay range reflects what the organization expects to offer for this position at the time of posting. In alignment with applicable laws, compensation will be determined based on the applicant's skills, qualifications, experience, and the specific requirements of the role. Please note that the organization may adjust this pay range as needed.

Our Culture of Care

We work hard to create a culture of care to ensure that our staff are best equipped to lead happy, healthy, and balanced lives. To that end, we offer a comprehensive benefits package which includes:

• Health, vision, and dental insurance with 100% of premiums covered for you and qualifying family members;
• Retirement benefits with a 5% employer match;
• A flexible unlimited PTO plan;
• Generous paid parental leave;
• Pre-tax commuter benefits;
• A company laptop;
• A flexible remote work environment;
• A home office setup stipend for all new employees;
• Monthly reimbursement for remote work expenses;
• A yearly professional development fund;
• Mental health and wellness benefits through Calm and Better Help; 
• Yearly in-person staff retreats; and
• A welcoming culture that celebrates diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

At Murmuration, we believe a vibrant, representative democracy depends on the inclusion of diverse voices, lived experiences, and perspectives. The best ideas don’t come from a single person or ideology — they emerge at the intersection of different backgrounds, identities, and viewpoints. We are proud of our commitment to building an organization and culture shaped by respect, empathy, and collaboration, where our team’s diversity fuels innovation, civic engagement, and meaningful change. We welcome new colleagues who will help us nurture this collective effort. Join us.

An Equal-Opportunity Employer with a Commitment to Diversity

Murmuration is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and as an organization committed to diversity and the perspective of all voices, we consider applicants equally of race, gender, color, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, disability, political affiliation and national origin. We reasonably accommodate staff members and/or applicants with disabilities, provided they are otherwise able to perform the essential functions of the job.

Note: Murmuration is two organizations working together to pursue our mission of amplifying the power of civic engagement: Murmuration Research Institute, a 501(c)(3) that conducts research to identify, design, and create the data, tools, and insights that build healthier and more equitable communities; and Murmuration, Inc., a 501(c)(4) that supports organizations working across the country on the nation’s most challenging issues with access to data, tools, and research that build healthier and more equitable communities.