Founding Data Engineer

Location: USA

Department: Software Engineering

Location Type: REMOTE

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

🐶 Our mission

🚀 The opportunity

💻 The role

🛠 What you’ll do

• Map Snout’s data landscape end to end — what exists, where it lives, what’s canonical vs. stale — and document it so it’s no longer tribal knowledge
• Reconcile data from multiple source systems (application data + multiple PIMS ingests) into conformed, trustworthy models where a term like “appointment” or “invoice” means one thing
• Own and extend our dbt warehouse: model the source-system activity that isn’t modeled yet, and raise the bar on tests, documentation, and data freshness
• Own the ingestion pipelines and the warehouse rebuild — keep them reliable, and recommend where to simplify or consolidate
• Keep clean, well-modeled data flowing to the tools that consume it, including our internal LLM/AI tooling
• Run early discovery with stakeholders across GTM, CX, finance, and product; turn business questions into a build plan; present options with clear trade-offs and cost before executing
• Set up and support the data analyst we hire next — be the technical foundation they build analysis on

💡What we're looking for

• 6+ years building and maintaining production data systems as a data or analytics engineer
• Deep SQL and hands-on PostgreSQL experience
• Strong dbt and dimensional/data-modeling experience in production — you’ve built warehouses people actually trust
• A track record of taming large, messy datasets from multiple source systems and turning them into something coherent
• A pragmatist’s bias toward simplicity — you reach for the simplest thing that works, can justify every tool and layer you’d add, and can tell the difference between complexity that earns its keep and complexity that doesn’t
• Strong communication: you can make a clear recommendation, back it with reasoning and cost, and commit wholeheartedly to a decision even when it isn’t the one you argued for
• Comfortable being the first and only data person for a while — self-directed, and happy building the foundation before there’s a team

🌟 What will make you stand out

• Experience as an early or first data hire who later grew a function or team
• Python (or similar) for pipelines and tooling
• Experience modeling data for LLM/AI consumption
• Familiarity with veterinary or healthcare data, or PIMS systems (Cornerstone, AllyDVM, etc.)
• Experience at a subscription or technology startup (Series A/B), on AWS

💖 Why you should join Snout

• Fast growing, venture capital backed technology company focused on improving access to veterinary care
• Ability to have a meaningful impact from Day 1, where your voice and opinion matters
• Unlimited potential to grow in your career, learn and expand your skillsets
• Collaborative, flexible, and friendly culture

❌ Why this role might not be a fit for you

• You believe every problem needs a new tool, and you’d want to stand up a large modern-data-stack (many SaaS tools, heavy infrastructure) before proving it’s needed — we optimize hard for simplicity and cost
• You’d rather be the analyst producing dashboards and insights than the engineer building the foundation those depend on
• You need an established data team and mature infrastructure around you to be productive
• A fast-moving startup culture feels overwhelming, or you’re uncomfortable with ambiguous, messy data from multiple source systems
• You prefer working in a silo rather than collaborating across GTM, CX, finance, and engineering
• You don’t live near an airport or have the flexibility to travel quarterly

💸 Compensation

• $165 000 - $185 000 base salary
• Equity

⚕️Benefits

• Day 1 medical/dental/vision benefits
• Flexible time off + 11 Snout calendar holidays
• Paid parental leave