Senior Data Platform Engineer

Description

Build the Data Platform That Powers What's Next.

We're seeking a seasoned Senior Data Platform Engineer to design and operate the pipelines, services, and data products that the rest of the company builds on. In this role, you'll own the flow of data end to end — ingesting and transforming it through ETL/ELT and dbt, orchestrating reliable batch and streaming workflows, and exposing it through the APIs and microservices that product teams depend on, including the next generation of features powered by large language models (LLMs) and machine learning. Beyond hands-on engineering, you'll shape technical direction, mentor teammates, and help drive standardization across the department. If you're energized by building dependable data systems and excited to apply LLMs and ML to real product problems, we'd love to have you on the team.

We are seeking an experienced Senior Data Platform Engineer to join our data team in building and maintaining a robust data platform and the backend services around it, while providing technical guidance and mentorship. This role focuses on designing and shipping high-quality data pipelines and transformations — building and maintaining ETL/ELT and dbt workflows, orchestration, and data-quality and observability practices — alongside the Python microservices and APIs that serve data and integrate LLM and ML capabilities into production. You'll also contribute to technical direction at the team level and lead standardization efforts across the department, collaborating closely with product teams and stakeholders to deliver reliable, scalable, and well-documented data and backend systems.

Responsibilities

• Technical Collaboration
• Contribute to technical direction and strategic planning at the team level.
• Evaluate and recommend new technologies and approaches for backend and AI/ML evolution.
• Provide technical guidance and code reviews for team members.
• Provide technical guidance and support to product teams consuming backend services.
• Data Pipelines, ETL & Transformation
• Design, build, and maintain data pipelines and ETL/ELT workflows that ingest, move, and transform data across source systems, the warehouse, and downstream consumers.
• Develop and maintain dbt models, tests, and documentation to support analytics, reporting, and product features.
• Build and operate workflow orchestration for batch and streaming data (scheduling, dependency management, retries, and alerting).
• Establish and enforce data quality, reliability, and observability practices across pipelines (monitoring, lineage, freshness, and validation).
• Implement schema management, versioning, and migration patterns to evolve data models safely.
• Optimize pipeline performance, cost, and scalability across the data platform.
• Data Application Development & Maintenance
• Design, develop, and maintain microservices in Python; familiarity with Go and/or TypeScript/JavaScript is a plus.
• Design and build APIs and services that integrate LLMs and ML models — including retrieval-augmented generation, embeddings, prompt orchestration, tool/function calling, and agentic workflows.
• Develop self-service tools and APIs that enable product teams to independently leverage backend and AI capabilities.
• Establish patterns for safely, reliably, and cost-effectively operating LLM- and ML-backed features in production (evaluation, observability, guardrails, fallbacks).
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation.
• Create and maintain technical documentation and standards repositories.
• Team Collaboration & Process
• Work within an Agile framework to prioritize and deliver backend improvements.
• Collaborate with product teams and stakeholders to understand requirements and pain points.
• Help foster a culture of continuous learning, improvement, and technical excellence.
• Encourage adoption of consistent tooling and processes across development teams.
• Contribute to cross-team initiatives to improve developer experience and backend consistency.
• Undertake additional assigned duties as requested.
  

Supervisory Responsibilities

• None.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, OR 6+ years of professional software development experience in lieu of degree.
• 5+ years of backend software development experience.
• 2+ years of experience in technical leadership or mentoring roles.
• Programming Languages: Expert proficiency in Python; familiarity with Go and/or TypeScript/JavaScript is a plus.
• LLMs & Machine Learning: Practical experience integrating LLMs or ML models into production systems — including at least several of: prompt engineering, RAG, embeddings/vector search, tool/function calling, evaluation, and cost/latency optimization.
• Databases: Advanced experience with MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis; familiarity with vector databases (e.g., pgvector, Pinecone, Weaviate) is a plus.
• APIs: Proven experience designing, building, and operating RESTful APIs at scale.
• CI/CD: Advanced pipeline design and implementation using industry best practices and tools.
• Infrastructure: Experience with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP); container orchestration experience (Kubernetes) is a plus.
• Proven experience building and scaling backend services and APIs.
• Deep understanding of microservice architecture patterns, distributed systems, and best practices.
• Experience with observability tools and practices (monitoring, logging, tracing) — including for AI/ML workloads where applicable.
• Strong ability to communicate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Strong customer-focused mindset with emphasis on the developer and end-user experience.
• Experience facilitating technical discussions and building consensus.
• Demonstrated experience providing technical guidance.
• Spanish speaking bi-lingual candidates are encouraged to apply.
• Candidates may be requested to complete position specific skills assessments.
• Applicants must be either a U.S. Citizen or eligible to work in the U.S.
• Requires the ability to satisfactorily complete a background check.

Working Settings

• Full-time Salaried Exempt, not eligible for overtime.
• Office hours are 8am-5pm, Monday through Friday, Central Time zone, additional hours may be required depending on priorities.
• This position is remote work eligible within the United States. Please be aware: the first week of employment includes mandatory in-person training. Remote start arrangements are not available.
• Also mandatory: One week a year of in-person training with the department.
• Potential for 10% travel, should the need arise.
• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

Compensation

• The salary varies based on experience and qualifications, but typically ranges from $100,000 to $125,000 per year.
• Monthly Bonus Program - determined by the Company’s monthly revenue result and are paid on a “percent to plan” payout formula (90% = $300, 100% = $600, 110% = $900, 120% = $1,200).
• Monthly phone stipend in accordance with the Company’s cell phone policy, currently $120/month.
• Health, Dental, and Vision insurance.
• 401(k) plan with an employer match up to 4% starting the first day of employment.
• Company-paid Life Insurance with options for supplemental coverage.
• Fully paid Short-Term Disability provided by the Company.
• 3 Weeks of PTO annually (details shared during onboarding).
• Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP) - Eligible to purchase company stock at a discount after 90 days of employment, with enrollment opportunities each May and November.

About Purple Wave

Visit us at: PurpleWave.com

Purple Wave Auction is a leader in the equipment auction industry focusing on construction, ag, fleet, and government equipment. We are a data-driven, quickly changing and evolving, growing organization. Our focus is on marketing the assets we sell for our customers to find the highest quality bidders for the best recoveries for our sellers. We strive to make this transaction Straight, Simple, and Sold. We live daily by our core values of trust, team, care, and passion to be the place people want to work and our customers want to return to for their equipment buying and selling needs for their businesses.

Purple Wave Auction is the largest no-reserve Internet auction company in the Midwest.

• We have over 300 employees, nearly doubling in size in the last three years.
• We have a robust tech team and continue to invest in progressive techniques to enhance our services.
• While working at Purple Wave, you will have the opportunity to help our mission of being the easiest, most straightforward place to buy and sell used equipment.
• Purple Wave empowers its employees to solve problems effectively in a family-run business culture.
• We provide opportunities for continued education as you grow your career with tuition reimbursement. We have a generous benefits package in one of the fastest-growing companies in the area.

Purple Wave is looking for an enthusiastic person to join our growing team to support our customers as we bring our values of Trust, Team, Care and Passion to them.

Purple Wave Auction Core Values

• TRUST: We are trustworthy…Our business depends upon our integrity and our customer’s ability to trust Purple Wave and its people: to enforce a fair, transparent unreserved auction marketplace; to safeguard their bidding information; to give a full effort on behalf of their asset(s); We are transparent, accountable and fair.
• TEAM: WE ARE A TEAM…We respect, support, appreciate and inspire each other; We communicate and follow-through; We need each other. We do our best work when we work together.
• CARE: WE CARE…We care for our customers. We look out for their best interests. We work hard for them. We “go the extra mile”.
• PASSION: WE ARE PASSIONATE…We are positive, we are enthusiastic, we take pride in our work, we own our responsibilities and we deliver; When we see problems, we fix them. We learn from our mistakes. We improve ourselves and Purple Wave every day; We believe Purple Wave can be the best marketplace for used equipment and we are committed to make it happen.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Equal Opportunity is a Purple Wave, Inc. policy. It is our practice to select the best-qualified candidate for each position in the organization. No employee of the Company will discriminate against an applicant for employment or a fellow employee because of race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, or other physical or mental disability, military or veteran status.

Notice of Background Check

As a condition of your employment, you will be required to sign the Company’s Authorization for Background Check, and to provide the Company with documents establishing your identity and right to work in the United States.

Additional Information

• Seniority LevelAssociate
• Promotion Tag