Lead Data Engineer

GiveCampus is the world's leading fundraising platform for non-profit educational institutions. Trusted by 1,300+ colleges, universities, and K-12 schools, our mission is to help advance the quality, the affordability, and the accessibility of education. We received a seed investment from Y Combinator in 2015 and have pursued a strategy of 'Sustainable Growth' ever since: achieving six consecutive years of profitability and positive cash-flow while more than quadrupling our revenue, our customer base, and our team. In 2022, we raised $50 million to accelerate the next stage of our growth.

Through The GiveCampus Social Mobility Initiative, we've donated $1 million in free fundraising support for programs that help low-income students, first-generation students, and underrepresented minorities. And in 2022 and 2023, we were named to Y Combinator's Top Companies list and the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies.

While we operate at meaningful scale (we've facilitated more than $6 billion in charitable giving), we’re still small relative to the commercial and social good opportunities in front of us. Every GiveCampus employee has a substantial impact on our trajectory, and we're growing to help schools achieve even greater results.

Our purpose-driven team of 90+ is located across the US: team members work from anywhere they choose. We have a beautiful 12,000 sf office in Washington, DC that is available for people to use whenever they want, and we regularly organize team meet-ups, events, and retreats in various locations. We're looking to expand our team with diverse and collaborative doers who believe in our mission and the transformative power of affordable, high-quality education.

Location: This is a remote-first role based in the U.S. While we embrace flexible, distributed work, we also value in-person connection. Team members are expected to attend multiple company-wide and team-specific onsites throughout the year.

We are seeking a visionary Lead Data Engineer to spearhead our efforts in harnessing the power of data to fuel our next growth phase. This key role will focus on establishing and maintaining best-in-class data practices, including consistent data modeling, visualization, lineage, and quality. The successful candidate will play a key role in shaping our data strategy, fostering a data-driven culture, and ensuring that our data assets are leveraged effectively to support strategic decisions and operational excellence. We are headquartered in Washington, DC, but are hiring across the US (we are a fully remote workforce).

Responsibilities will include:

• Develop and implement a comprehensive data strategy that aligns with our growth objectives, including data governance, data quality, data modeling, and data analytics initiatives.
• Lead the design and maintenance of scalable data models and architectures, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and security across the GC platform including our internal tooling and our data warehouse
• Collaborate closely with Product to identify data needs, integrate new data sources, and support data-driven decision-making processes.
• Champion the use of data visualization tools and techniques to enhance decision-making and communicate insights effectively across the organization.
• Establish robust data lineage and quality frameworks to ensure accuracy, completeness, and reliability of data throughout its lifecycle.
• Drive the adoption of best practices in data management and analytics, including the evaluation and introduction of new technologies and methodologies.
• Work closely with our Data Scientists to help support and grow our AI/ML initiatives
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and learning within the data team and across the organization.

What we are looking for:

• Expertise in data modeling, data architecture, and data visualization tools and techniques.
• Extensive experience with database management systems (SQL and NoSQL)
• Strong proficiency in programming languages relevant to data engineering (e.g., Python, R, Scala, etc).
• Strong understanding of data governance, data quality standards, and data lineage concepts.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and execute data strategies that support business growth and operational excellence.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to translate complex data concepts into clear and actionable insights.
• Experience contributing to and supporting AI/ML data projects including support of a Data Science team
• 10+ years of experience in programming and development with a focus on data driven solutions

Bonus points if you have:

• Experience with deployments to Heroku, AWS, or similar.
• Operations experience and how it pertains to reliability/speed. Especially as it relates to data replication and transformation
• Experience with Customer Relationship Management tools and data structures
• Experience working on a fundraising/crowdfunding platform.
• Experience working on a fintech or payments technology product

Ready to apply?

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At GiveCampus, we value diversity and we pledge to foster an environment of support, inclusivity, and learning, both on the job and throughout the application process. In this spirit, we encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply.

GiveCampus is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applicants and employees are not discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.

If you feel like you don't meet all of the requirements for this role, please apply anyways. We know confidence gaps and imposter syndrome often get in the way of connecting with incredible people, and we don't want them to prevent us from meeting you.