Senior Principal Engineer, Data Infra

About Cardlytics
Remember that time you got cash back on a cup of coffee through your banking app? That was us!

Cardlytics (NASDAQ: CDLX) is the industry-leading purchase intelligence and incentives platform. We are a product-driven company that cares about three things: our people, our customers, and our partners. Together, we make commerce more rewarding for everyone by helping businesses attract, understand, and incentivize consumers through their banks’ digital channels.

Location: Menlo Park, CA (Hybrid) or Remote - PST Time Zone

About the Team

At Data Infra, our goal is to streamline Cardlytics data consumption across the entire organization. We understand that accessible, reliable data underpins informed decision-making and innovative problem-solving. By partnering closely with teams, we tailor our solutions to fit their specific workflow needs and make strategic investments in our Data Infra platform to ensure swift access to data. Our approach is designed to not only simplify the way teams interact with data but also to accelerate time-to-insight, enabling Cardlytics teams to harness the full potential of their data for impactful outcomes.

About the Position
Cardlytics is seeking a Senior Principal Engineer, Data Infra to join our team, reporting to the Director Cloud & Data Infra.

As part of our growing team, you'll have the opportunity to work closely with cross-functional partners across the organization, leveraging your expertise to build innovative solutions that drive business impact. By joining us, you'll be at the forefront of shaping Cardlytics' data strategy and contributing to a culture of collaboration, experimentation, and continuous learning.

Responsibilities:

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with both data science and analytics functions to understand their current processes, identify workflow inefficiencies, and pinpoint areas where Data Infra investments could enhance self-service capabilities within Cardlytics.

• Infrastructure Audit & Assessment: Conduct a comprehensive audit of existing Data Infra, with a focus on identifying gaps that hinder the creation of self-service data environments for analytics teams and evaluating opportunities to improve infrastructure components like storage, processing power, and access mechanisms.

• Proof of Concept (PoC) Development & Evaluation: Design, execute, and evaluate PoCs aimed at addressing identified inefficiencies within the data science and analytics workflows, ensuring that these solutions are scalable and can be effectively rolled out across the organization.

• Technology Assessment: Research and assess technology vendors to determine the most suitable infrastructure upgrades or services that support self-service data needs and facilitate creation of derivative datasets.

• Infrastructure Optimization & Maintenance: Oversee the performance of Data Infra, making continuous improvements to ensure speed, scalability, reliability, security, and efficiency in serving both data science and analytics teams' requirements.

• Process Improvement & Documentation: Streamline existing processes related to data access, model deployment, and dataset creation by implementing automation solutions where appropriate and maintaining comprehensive documentation for ease of understanding and adoption.

• Change Management & Training, Innovation & Future Planning: Lead the transition to new infrastructure components, providing training and support to both analytics teams and software developers. Keep abreast of emerging trends in data infrastructure and MLOps to drive innovation within Data Infra, ensuring that Cardlytics remains at the forefront of data-driven decision-making.

Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in a related field

• Data Infrastructure Landscape: In-depth knowledge of modern data infrastructure components, including cloud services, databases (SQL/NoSQL), big data processing frameworks (Spark, Trino or similar), and data management architectures (Hudi, Iceberg or similar).

• Building Data Infrastructure Systems: Proven experience in designing, implementing, and managing robust data infrastructure systems that support the needs of both analytics and machine learning workflows.

• Machine Learning Operations (MLOps): Strong background in MLOps practices, with experience in automating the end-to-end lifecycle of machine learning models—from data preparation and model training to deployment and monitoring.

• Experience with Self-Service Data Organizations: A solid understanding of self-service data environments, including the challenges and best practices for catering to diverse user groups within an organization. Familiarity with tools and platforms that enable non-technical users to access and analyze data independently.

• Hands-On Technical Expertise: Strong hands-on experience with the tools and technologies used for building and scaling data infrastructure systems, including SQL/NoSQL databases, ETL processes, data warehousing solutions, and cloud services platforms like AWS, GCP, or Azure.

• Expertise in Cloud Data Platforms (Snowflake, Databricks or similar): Hands-on experience with these platforms, including their architecture, data storage capabilities, performance tuning, security features, and integration points with other tools in the ecosystem (e.g., Notebooks, MLflow etc.).

• Data Operations Automation: Proficiency in automating data operations to improve efficiency, reduce manual work, and ensure consistent delivery of services within the data infrastructure ecosystem.

• Bachelor's degree in related field

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree preferred in Computer Science or related field

Core Values

Our shared values are the driving force behind everything we do. Across all roles, we are looking for teammates who embody these values:

• Customer and Partner-first

• Act with Urgency and Focus

• Integrity with our partners and data

• Accountability even when challenged

• Empowerment over hierarchy

• Growth over comfort 

Compensation

At Cardlytics salary ranges are determined based on factors such as role, level, and location. Individual compensation may be determined by relevant skills, experience, education, training, and other role-specific criteria. This salary range will be narrowed during the interview process based on a number of the aforementioned factors.The base salary range provided below does not include bonuses and additional benefits.

The annual US base salary range for this role is:

$260,000 - $285,000

Benefits and Perks      

• Flexible paid time off plus company holidays

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance begins on your first day

• 401(k) retirement plan with company match, plan also includes a student loan debt repayment option

• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

• Educational assistance for continuing education

• Lifestyle Spending Account for physical, emotional, and financial wellness (like gym memberships, home down payments, art classes, park passes, and more!)

• Complementary Calm app subscriptions to support employee mental health and wellbeing

As an equal opportunity employer, Cardlytics is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our people bring our products and organization to life, and every unique perspective makes us better. If you can do the job and you’re excited about growing with us as we scale our best-in-class advertising platform, we’d love to hear from you. If you need accommodation in the recruiting process due to a disability, please email [email protected] or inform your recruiter.