Current openings at Loka, Inc

  Years from now, history will look back at this moment as a landmark for the human race—the moment when generative artificial intelligence began to change everything. Luckily, you happen to be living through it. Now what? If you’re one of those rare people driven to add their intellectual energy to the relentless momentum of technological advancement, consider Loka your optimal leverage point. Loka is a globally distributed tech consultancy based in Silicon Valley, and we’re seeking a Senior Data Engineer to join our growing team. In this role you will design, implement and scale data solutions from batch to streaming, dealing with the low-latency requirements of a few megabytes up to several petabytes. You will be an evangelist of good practices and dwell at the cutting edge of new technologies and architectural patterns. Ultimately we expect that you will not just fit in with our Data crew but elevate it to new heights. We help our clients launch innovations that fix the climate, defeat cancer, improve agricultural efficiencies, teach kids to read and more. We work with all kinds of companies, from Silicon Valley startups to major household brands, always guided by our fundamental belief that mission matters. We count more than 200 certified specialists, technical experts and PhDs among our colleagues—committed Lokals who contribute to their brilliance not only to serving our clients but to mentoring junior colleagues as well. We work entirely remotely, test new ideas with our in-house incubator and take every other Friday off (really). To cap it off, at the end of 2024 Loka was recognized by AWS as Innovation Partner of the Year, beating more than 150,000 partners for the title. We’re as proud of our culture as we are of our projects. You will be too. Join our team, feed your need to grow and ship projects you believe in with a team you’re proud to be a part of. The Role Build scalable production-grade data pipelines and real-time data streams. Write and design scalable, cloud-ready applications. Lead technical projects through architecture, design and implementation phases. Engage with clients to understand their business and technical needs, evaluate potential solutions, and define high-level implementation approaches and estimates. Collaborate with Machine Learning, Data Science, Design, Software Engineering and Business teams to triage data or ETL issues. Build tests and health checks to maintain code and data quality. Monitor and analyze data flowing through various systems by adding appropriate visualizations and dashboards. Contribute to internal engineering initiatives and projects, helping identify opportunities for improvement, evaluate solutions, and drive their implementation. Provide updates and offer guidance to clients. Technical Requirements Advanced Python and SQL Experience in ETL design, implementation, and maintenance. Experience in AWS (preferred), GCP, or Azure delivering data-centric product experiences 5+ years experience in related role Experience with in-memory and disk-based databases, relational and non-relational databases, full-text search engines, database design, development, and maintenance. (Such as MySQL, MongoDB, OpenSearch, and DynamoDB, with bonus for Graph Databases like Neo4j) Experience with data warehousing and multidimensional data models (columnar data modeling) Working knowledge in Data Lake, Data warehouse and massive parallel processing Strong problem-solving ability and ability to work through ambiguity and incomplete specifications Preferred but Not Required Working knowledge in IAM, Federated Authentication, SSO, SAML, Encryption, Security, APIs, Disaster Recovery or Backup Strong ability in distributed systems for large-scale data processing Experience with Spark and Pandas Experience with Open Tables (Hudi, Delta Lake, DataBricks, Iceberg as related to Data Lakehouse) Experience with Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD Pipelines Experience with QuickSight and DataViz   Additional Requirements Excellent English - Being a global team, we work entirely in English for meetings, customer calls and business communications CV written in English   Personality Profile Curious: You strive to learn and grow into different industries with a modern tech stack. Autonomous: You thrive in a fully remote, globally distributed team. Collaborative: You enjoy working across departments. Adaptable: You operate with a startup mindset and move at startup speed. Benefits   Every other Friday off (26 extra days off a year) Remote-first culture Explore and Relocation programs (three months work abroad or full international relo) Paid sick days and local holidays Business English classes program Continuous Learning Support Fitness and/or Mental Health Subscriptions Access to LokaLabs™, our internal research and development program Defined career path     Your achievements matter to us! Ensure your CV and LinkedIn and GitHub profiles are up to date and accurately reflect your experience.

At Loka, our teams have helped clients advance the world's #1 AI reading tutor, eliminate $1B in food waste and develop novel drugs for fighting cancer. To cap it off, at the end of 2024 Loka was recognized by AWS as Innovation Partner of the Year, outshining 150,000 partners for the title. And we did it all while working remotely and enjoying every other Friday off 😎. The Role Be the operational backbone of HX Ops in Western Europe: reliable, compliant and impact-aware, executing the standards the HX Ops team sets, and owning the judgment calls day to day. You'll be one of the first points of contact for HX requests in the region, balancing urgency, employee impact, risk and cost while keeping Loka's global HX Ops standards and local legal realities in sync. This is a role for someone who wants real end-to-end ownership, not a queue to work through in order. This is a hybrid role, requiring 2 days per week in our Portugal office. Key Responsibilities Own end-to-end HX Operations for Western Europe: onboarding, offboarding, contracts, local legal compliance, payroll coordination, benefits administration and vendor relationships. Act as one of the first points of contact for HX requests in the region, triaging and resolving based on urgency, employee impact, risk and cost, escalating complex or high-risk cases to the HX Operations Manager. Coordinate payroll inputs, expenses and benefits administration with Finance and local providers, with full accountability for accuracy and deadlines. Manage raises, promotions and other salary-related administrative processes with precision and confidentiality. Run the Lisbon office day to day, from space, supplies, and equipment logistics to vendor relationships and invoicing, while shaping a welcoming culture and environment that makes it a place people want to be. Own vendor and contract relationships for your region, including benefits providers, local vendors and other regional suppliers. Ensure local legal and compliance accuracy while aligning with Loka's global HX Ops standards, flagging where local requirements need to override global consistency. Identify process gaps, bottlenecks and manual work in your region, and propose and help build fixes such as documentation, workflow changes and automation. Support internal programs and employee experience initiatives in your region as needed. Qualifications Must-Haves 3-5 years in HR Operations, People Operations or HR Generalist roles with real end-to-end ownership of operational processes, not purely administrative support. Hands-on experience with payroll coordination, benefits administration, contracts and compliance in at least one country. Demonstrated ability to prioritize and make judgment calls based on urgency, employee impact, risk and cost, this is not a "work the queue in order" role. Experience operating in a service-oriented, internal-customer-facing HR or People function. Comfortable working autonomously in a remote-first, globally distributed organization. Strongly Preferred Experience operating across more than one country, or in a multi-country HR Ops setup. Working knowledge of Portuguese labor law and compliance; familiarity with labor laws in other countries is a plus. Process and systems mindset, with experience improving workflows, documentation, automation or HR tooling. Background in a fast-growing or scaling organization. Regular collaboration with Finance and/or Legal. AI proficiency, with comfort using AI tools to streamline HR Ops workflows, documentation and reporting. Additional Requirements Excellent English: As a global team, we work entirely in English for meetings, customer calls and business communications. CV written in English. Personality Profile Curious: You're eager to learn and grow among a cutting-edge tech team. Autonomous and positive: You excel in a fully remote, globally distributed workplace. Team player: You enjoy collaboration. Adaptable: You operate with a startup mindset and move at a startup pace. Trustworthy: You handle confidential and sensitive information with judgment and discretion. Benefits Every other Friday off (26 extra days off a year) Remote and flexible Explore and Travel programs (three months work abroad) Paid sick days and local holidays Access to LokaLabs™, our internal research and development program Fitness subscription Mental wellness programs Defined career path Business English classes Your achievements matter to us! Ensure your CV and LinkedIn profile are up to date and accurately reflect your experience.