Senior Staff Data Engineer

This is a remote role within the United States. Due to FedRAMP requirements, this role requires US citizenship. About the role: Join the team building SailPoint Observability & Insights, an industry-leading visualization capability for identity governance that shows every access path from identities to sensitive data and enables fast, policy-driven action from a unified view. This is a Senior Staff role: you will design and build critical systems, set technical direction, and lead cross-team execution. You will own core data platform capabilities behind Observability & Insights (powered by SailPoint's internal Identity Graph), spanning batch and streaming pipelines, warehousing, and graph-oriented storage. You will help power a graph with billions of nodes and edges, where backend architecture directly determines UX speed, clarity, and trust. Responsibilities Lead architecture and implementation of scalable ETL/ELT pipelines and data services for Observability & Insights. Own technical strategy for core data domains; align roadmap and design decisions across partner teams. Act as primary technical lead for cross-team initiatives with clear delivery outcomes. Set and enforce standards for data quality, governance, lineage, observability, and operational readiness. Drive performance and cost improvements across Spark/Flink/SQL/CQL workloads and storage patterns. Optimize graph-serving data models and access patterns so complex relationship visualizations remain responsive at extreme scale. Partner closely with product and UI engineering to deliver low-latency experiences for graph exploration, filtering, and risk investigation. Lead design reviews and provide high-signal code and architecture feedback. Partner with product, infrastructure, security, and analytics teams to define practical solutions. Participate in on-call for critical systems and lead incident follow-throughs that improve system resilience. Use AI-assisted development practices to accelerate delivery while upholding architecture, security, data governance, and code-review standards. Requirements 12+ years building production software, with substantial time in data engineering at SaaS scale. 6+ years owning architecture for commercial data platforms or major data subsystems. US Citizenship is required for this position due to FedRAMP support responsibilities. Expert experience with Snowflake data modeling and query optimization. Strong hands-on experience with dbt, Airflow, and distributed processing patterns (batch + streaming). Strong experience with Cassandra and familiarity with graph-oriented data systems. Experience building or operating systems that handle billions of relationships with predictable latency and high reliability. Deep understanding of cloud-native systems on AWS, Azure, or GCP. Proven record of leading high-complexity projects across team/org boundaries. Proven ability to improve team-level delivery quality (planning, dependencies, execution, reliability). Practical experience using AI-assisted software development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or Claude Code) in a professional engineering workflow, including data modeling, SQL/dbt, and pipeline development, testing, and documentation, with disciplined review before production use. Strong communication skills: can explain tradeoffs to engineers, product leaders, and executives. BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience. Preferred Experience running data platforms with SLOs and modern observability (Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog). Experience instrumenting data jobs and services for performance, quality, and cost visibility. Familiarity with IAM/IGA, compliance, security, or privacy-sensitive product domains. Experience with Kubernetes, infrastructure-as-code, and continuous delivery for data systems. Familiarity with AI. Familiarity with data lake patterns and Spark/Flink operational tuning. What success looks like First 30 days Ramp quickly on Observability & Insights architecture, operations, and roadmap. Contribute meaningful improvements (reliability, performance, or design quality). Build strong working relationships with key partner teams. By 90 days Own a major data-layer initiative end to end. Publish and align a technical strategy for your domain with partner teams. Raise design and execution quality through reviews, standards, and clear technical direction. By 6 months Deliver at least one cross-team, high-impact program with measurable product and engineering outcomes. Establish durable architecture and operating practices that improve reliability, cost, and delivery speed. Improve end-user graph exploration performance for dense, large-scale relationship paths. Be a recognized technical leader for Observability & Insights data architecture and execution. Benefits and Compensation listed vary based on the location of your employment and the nature of your employment with SailPoint. As a part of the total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the SailPoint Corporate Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission, along with potential eligibility for equity participation. SailPoint maintains broad salary ranges for its roles to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, market conditions and locations, as well as reflect SailPoint's differing products, industries, and lines of business. Candidates are typically placed into the range based on the preceding factors as well as internal peer equity. We estimate the base salary, for US-based employees, will be in this range from (min-mid-max, USD): $155,800 - $262,550.00 Base salaries for employees based in other locations are competitive for the employee's home location. Benefits Overview 1. Health and wellness coverage: Medical, dental, and vision insurance 2. Disability coverage: Short-term and long-term disability 3. Life protection: Life insurance and Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) 4. Additional life coverage options: Supplemental life insurance for employees, spouses, and children 5. Flexible spending accounts for health care, and dependent care; limited purpose flexible spending account 6. Financial security: 401(k) Savings and Investment Plan with company matching 7. Time off benefits: Flexible vacation policy 8. Holidays: 8 paid holidays annually 9. Sick leave 10. Parental support: Paid parental leave 11. Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and Care Counselors 12. Voluntary benefits: Legal Assistance, Critical Illness, Accident, Hospital Indemnity and Pet Insurance options 13. Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution SailPoint is an equal opportunity employer and we welcome all qualified candidates to apply to join our team. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law. Alternative methods of applying for employment are available to individuals unable to submit an application through this site because of a disability. Contact applicationassistance@sailpoint.com or mail to 11120 Four Points Dr, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78726, to discuss reasonable accommodations. NOTE: Any unsolicited resumes sent by candidates or agencies to this email will not be considered for current openings at SailPoint. SailPoint is a leading provider of identity security for the modern enterprise. Enterprise security starts and ends with identities and their access, yet the ability to manage and secure identities today has moved well beyond human capacity. Using a foundation of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the SailPoint Identity Security Platform delivers the right level of access to the right identities and resources at the right time—matching the scale, velocity, and environmental needs of today's cloud-oriented enterprise. Our intelligent, autonomous, and integrated solutions put identity security at the core of digital business operations, enabling even the most complex organizations across the globe to build a security foundation capable of defending against today's most pressing threats. The employment policy of SailPoint is to provide equal opportunity to all persons, and it is SailPoint's policy to take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. It is SailPoint's policy to recruit, hire, train and promote qualified individuals in all job titles, and ensure that all other personnel actions are administered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, military and/or veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status, and we will ensure that all employment decisions are based only on valid job requirements. SailPoint does not discriminate on the basis of national origin or citizenship status as provided under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Employees and applicants shall not be subjected to harassment, intimidation, threats, coercion, or discrimination because they have engaged in or may engage in any of the following activities: Filing a complaint; Assisting or participating in an investigation, compliance evaluation, hearing, or any other activity related to the administration of the affirmative action provisions of Section 503, VEVRAA, or any other Federal, State or local law requiring equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities or protected veterans; Opposing any act or practice made unlawful by Section 503, VEVRAA, or their implementing regulations in this part, or any other Federal, State or local law requiring equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities or protected veterans; or Exercising any other right protected by section 503, VEVRAA or their implementing regulations. SailPoint will also provide reasonable accommodation to known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified employee or applicant for employment, unless the accommodation would impose undue hardship on the operation of our business. SailPoint's affirmative action program contains an audit and reporting system which enables us to measure the effectiveness of our program, indicate any need for remedial action, determine the degree to which our objectives have been attained, determine whether protected veterans and individuals with disabilities had had the opportunity to participate in company-sponsored activities, measure our compliance with the program's specific obligations, and document actions taken to comply with these obligations.