Job Application for Data Engineering Lead at Ascend

What We Do

Insurance is a $10T industry still running on PDFs, email threads, and manual reconciliation. Ascend is changing that.

We built the first finance automation platform designed specifically for insurance — combining AI and embedded fintech to modernize how money moves across the entire policy lifecycle, from collections to disbursements. In five years, we've become the market leader: trusted by thousands of insurance businesses nationwide, processing billions in transactions annually, and growing 200%+ year over year.

How We Do It

Ascend automates the financial operations that insurers, MGAs, and agencies run every day — and embeds directly into the transactions where money actually moves.

AI is driving the cost of software toward zero. The companies that win won't just sell tools — they'll capture value at the point of the transaction itself. Ascend is built for exactly that moment. Our customers don't just adopt software; they unlock measurable efficiency with a proven 5–7x return on investment.

Our 70+ person team, based in San Francisco and Columbus, brings together deep expertise in insurance, fintech, and AI to build infrastructure the industry has never had.

Why We Do It

The insurance industry intermediates trillions of dollars — and almost none of that infrastructure was built for the modern era. Legacy systems aren't just inefficient; they're a ceiling on what the industry can become.

Ascend's mission is to become the leading financial automation platform for insurance by 2030 — powering the financial operations of the entire industry and transforming the way trillions of dollars move. We're not building another point solution. We're building the financial backbone of insurance.

Your role

We are hiring a technically rigorous, systems minded Data Engineering Lead to architect and own the data infrastructure that powers decision making across Ascend. Reporting to the Head of Finance & Data, this role is responsible for the full lifecycle of our data platform, from ingestion of raw, high-volume transactional data to the modeling and orchestration layers that define our most critical business metrics. You are not building dashboards for the sake of dashboards. You are building trusted, scalable data products that allow Ascend to move billions of dollars with confidence as we scale.

Responsibilities will include

Objective #1: In your first 30 days, you will:

Develop a deep understanding of Ascend’s data sources, existing pipelines, and downstream use cases across Finance, Product, and Engineering
Build strong working relationships with key stakeholders to understand current pain points, risk areas, and future data needs
Evaluate the current data stack and workflows, identifying gaps in reliability, observability, and scalability
Begin defining the architectural vision and technical standards for a modern, high-integrity data platform

Objective #2: In your first 60 days, you will:

Design and begin implementing core components of the Modern Data Stack, including ingestion, transformation, and orchestration
Establish data modeling standards using dbt, with clear, version-controlled definitions for core financial and operational metrics
Introduce foundational data quality and observability frameworks, including automated testing for freshness, schema evolution, and reconciliation
Partner closely with Product Engineering to improve production data exports and ensure analytics infrastructure scales alongside product development

Objective #3: In your first 90 days, and beyond, you will:

Own and operate a trusted Single Source of Truth that defines Ascend’s core KPIs at the infrastructure level
Run scalable, production-grade data pipelines that support high-volume financial transactions with accuracy and audibility
Act as the technical authority on data architecture and tooling, evaluating and evolving orchestration, governance, and reverse ETL solutions
Mentor future data hires and establish best practices across data modeling, CI/CD, documentation, and peer review
Translate complex financial and business logic into reliable, performant data structures that enable confident decision making across the company

Base Salary: $200-230K

You might be a good fit if you are/have:

6-8 years of experience
Deep experience designing end-to-end data platforms using tools like Snowflake/BigQuery, dbt, Airflow/Dagster, and Fivetran/Airbyte.
Strong understanding of financial data integrity, including reconciliation, ledger-based modeling, and the nuances of B2B SaaS and lending metrics.
Passionate about CI/CD, data testing (Great Expectations/dbt tests), and building "self-healing" pipelines.
Someone who thrives in the ambiguity of an early-stage startup and can transition seamlessly from high-level architecture to hands-on SQL and Python coding.
Have experience working in our toolsets, which include Slack, Notion, Excel, Front, and Linear.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, ability to quickly understand complex (and sometimes dense) subject matter, and great attention to detail

All roles at Ascend are 5 days a week onsite at our beautiful office in SoMa!

Benefits

100% health premiums covered for you and your dependents
401k with employer matching options
A fast growing team with an emphasis on promoting from within 80% of all hires in the last 12 months have already been promoted!
Unlimited PTO
Company paid commuter benefits
Parental and family leave
Lunch everyday
Dog-friendly office!

Equal Opportunity

We are committed to equal opportunity employment and embrace diversity within our organization. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We encourage candidates to apply even if their experience doesn't precisely match this opportunity. We value diversity and are dedicated to equal opportunity employment.

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Data Engineering Lead