Senior Data Engineer

Department: Data

Location: Palo Alto, CA

Employment Type: FullTime

Mudflap serves the $800B trucking industry, the backbone of the U.S. economy. Our market-leading payment products help truckers save thousands of dollars on fuel (their #1 business expense), while providing our fuel stop partners with access to new, hard-to-reach customers. We’re a fast-growing marketplace business looking for a new customer-obsessed teammate to join us on this exciting journey.

We are building the data foundation that powers smarter, faster decisions across the business. As a Senior Data Engineer, you’ll play a mission-critical role in designing, scaling, and governing our modern, cloud-based data platform. Your expertise in data ingestion, data architecture, schema design, and governance will help shape how data flows across our systems and is leveraged by teams company-wide.

This is a unique opportunity to set standards, drive technical direction, and ensure the quality, consistency, and scalability of the data platform that hundreds of thousands of SMB trucking companies rely on - and love - to run their businesses every day.

This role is based in the Bay Area and involves a hybrid work approach, balancing in-office collaboration with the ability to work remotely. 

Expectations (In this role, you will):

• Architect and scale ingestion frameworks to bring diverse data sources (internal systems, third-party APIs, streaming events) into our platform in a reliable, high-throughput way.

• Define and enforce data schemas to ensure data integrity, discoverability, and interoperability across teams.

• Own data governance strategy, including data quality, metadata management, lineage, and compliance with security and privacy requirements.

• Design and optimize system-wide data architecture to support analytics, ML, and operational use cases at scale.

• Establish best practices for data modeling, schema evolution, and data lifecycle management.

• Partner with product, engineering, analytics, and compliance teams to align data architecture with business and regulatory needs.

• Mentor other engineers, leading by example in code quality, architecture reviews, and technical design discussions.

• Drive adoption of modern tooling for orchestration, lineage tracking, and cataloging to improve platform robustness and usability.

• Own high-impact, cross-functional initiatives that shape the future of Mudflap’s data platform.

Experience (What we look for):

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science (or related technical field)

• 8+ years of data engineering experience, with at least 3+ years in senior or staff-level roles.

• Proven expertise in data ingestion frameworks (batch and streaming)

• Deep experience with cloud-native data platforms (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, or Redshift).

• Strong command of SQL and Python, with ability to design performant, reusable components.

• Hands-on knowledge of data governance frameworks (quality checks, lineage, cataloging, security, compliance).

• Strong understanding of data warehouse methodologies, dimensional and normalized modeling, and distributed system design.

• Experience with orchestration tools (Airflow, Dagster, Prefect) and metadata/catalog platforms (dbt, DataHub, Amundsen, or similar).

• Ability to set long-term technical vision while driving execution on near-term deliverables.

• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with a track record of mentoring engineers and influencing cross-functional stakeholders.

Perks and Benefits (What we offer):

• Competitive salary and equity in a high-growth startup

• Multiple health benefit options

• Responsible Time Off

• 401(k) matching

• Opportunities and support for major career growth

• Annual Company offsite event (Mudfest!)

The base salary range for this role is $175,000 - $215,000. This information reflects a base salary range for this position based on current market data, which may be subject to change as new market data becomes available. The candidate's skills, experience, and other relevant factors will determine the exact compensation. 

Company Overview (Who we are):

Mudflap is on a mission to transform the trucking and logistics industry by leveling the playing field for owner operators and small fleets. Backed by top-tier venture investors, including QED, Matrix Partners, Commerce Ventures, NFX, and 500 Startups and included in the Forbes Fintech 50 list, Mudflap offers fleet fuel management solutions. Our core team hails from Disney, Uber, Procore, DoorDash, Google, Meta, Capital One, Affirm and Brex.

Here are the core values that we believe in and look for in new teammates:

• Be Customer Obsessed: We deeply understand customer needs and put our customers at the center of everything we do

• Make it Count: Act like an owner by focusing on the impact of your work

• Find a Way: Be a creative problem solver who pushes past roadblocks to win for our customers and our teammates

• Sweat the Details: We keep our standards high and achieve them by paying attention to every detail

• Be Curious: Use a growth mindset to question assumptions, take calculated risks and stretch the boundaries of what’s possible