Staff Software Engineer, Metadata

ABOUT THE ROLE Fivetran and dbt Labs are building data pipelines to power the modern data stack for thousands of companies. As a Staff Software Engineer on the Metadata team, you will be a technical leader responsible for the metadata layer of the dbt platform, including the discovery API, catalog, lineage, and run history services that enable customers to understand, trust, and act on their data. WHAT YOU'LL DO As a Staff Software Engineer, you will contribute to the technical direction for the team, owning the architecture of major subsystems, leading complex projects that span multiple engineers, and raising the bar for design and code quality across the team. Your responsibilities will include: - Leading the design and delivery of complex, team-level projects across the Metadata services, coordinating development across multiple engineers - Independently designing and developing the architecture of new subsystems, and owning team-level subsystems end to end - Using AI tooling and agents to improve development and SDLC artifacts - Reviewing and approving technical designs, ensuring they meet a high quality bar, and identifying design deficiencies before they ship - Driving technical initiatives across the team's responsibility areas - Setting and upholding design, architecture, and coding best practices, and holding teammates accountable for code quality - Coaching and mentoring engineers, demonstrably improving the quality of code across the team - Writing technical specs, documenting common components, and keeping the team accountable for necessary project documentation - Fixing and optimizing critical parts of the codebase, driving incident follow-through, and advancing the reliability and performance of the services you own - Participating in the on-call rotation WHAT YOU'LL NEED To be successful in this role, you will need: - 8+ years of software engineering experience with a track record of leading complex, team-scope technical work to completion - Deep expertise designing and owning subsystems in distributed, cloud-based systems - Demonstrated ability to set technical direction for a team and drive multi-engineer initiatives across an area of ownership - Excellent design and architecture judgment, with the ability to identify design flaws in existing systems and propose sound solutions with clear trade-offs - Proficiency in a modern backend or systems language such as Python, Java, C++, or C# - Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and managing dev infrastructure - Fluency in using AI code assistants and coding agents to generate and investigate code, and conversational AI to author, review, and synthesize SDLC artifacts WHY REMOTE This is a full-time, fully remote position. BENEFITS - 100% employer-paid medical insurance - Generous paid time-off policy (PTO), plus paid sick leave - California Pay Range: $183,000 - $245,000 USD