Techstars Senior Software Engineer, Data Lake
Summary
Build and scale Robinhood’s data lake ingestion systems using Kafka, Flink, and CDC to move financial data securely from operational platforms to S3 for analytics and compliance.
Join us in building the future of finance.
Our mission is to democratize finance for all. An estimated $124 trillion of assets will be inherited by younger generations in the next two decades. The largest transfer of wealth in human history. If you’re ready to be at the epicenter of this historic cultural and financial shift, keep reading.
About the team + role
We are building an elite team, applying frontier technologies to the world’s biggest financial problems. We’re looking for bold thinkers. Sharp problem-solvers. Builders who are wired to make an impact. Robinhood isn’t a place for complacency, it’s where ambitious people do the best work of their careers. We’re a high-performing, fast-moving team with ethics at the center of everything we do. Expectations are high, and so are the rewards.
The Data Lake Ingestion team builds the foundations that move data from Robinhood’s operational platforms into our data lake so partner teams can make data-driven decisions. Our mission centers on operating secure and reliable ingestion paths, spanning near-real-time CDC pipelines, large-scale snapshot systems, and streaming flows via Kafka and Flink. We sit at the center of Robinhood's data platform, directly enabling analytics, regulatory retention workflows, and secure access patterns across the company. We collaborate with partner teams like Storage, Streaming Platform, and Governance to maintain high data quality and schema validation at scale. Our team is built on a culture of technical excellence and collaborative problem-solving to address deep platform engineering challenges!
As a Senior Software Engineer, you will design and implement the next generation of our hybrid ingestion systems, focusing on performance, schema evolution, and validation. You will scale our flagship Rocket CDC platform and migrate legacy snapshot pipelines to newer, backup-based architectures. Your work will involve developing high-throughput streaming applications with Apache Flink and Kafka to land curated datasets in S3. You will also partner with downstream data consumers to establish secure access controls and protect sensitive data across the ingestion lifecycle. In this position, you will guide technical designs and mentor other engineers on the team to raise our engineering standards.
This role is based in our Bellevue, WA office, with in-person attendance expected at least 3 days per week.
At Robinhood, we believe in the power of in-person work to accelerate progress, spark innovation, and strengthen community. Our office experience is intentional, energizing, and designed to fully support high-performing teams.
What you’ll do
- Design and scale CDC, snapshot, and streaming ingestion systems that transfer operational data into the data lake.
- Improve pipeline reliability, scale, data quality, and monitoring to maintain ingestion health and reduce replication lag.
- Develop self-service onboarding flows and tooling to help partner teams register databases and schemas quickly and securely.
- Collaborate with platform teams and data consumers to select and implement appropriate ingestion patterns for their latency and compliance needs.
- Implement access controls, PII-handling workflows, and retention pipelines to protect sensitive data across its lifecycle.
What you bring
- At least 5 years of software engineering experience, specifically building backend platforms or distributed data systems.
- Strong proficiency in Java, Scala, or Python, with experience writing clean, maintainable, and high-performance code.
- Deep technical expertise with relational databases (such as Postgres) and change data capture (CDC) mechanisms.
- Proven experience building and operating large-scale streaming systems using Kafka, Flink, or Spark.
- Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (specifically AWS S3), container orchestration using Kubernetes, and schema governance.
What we offer
- Challenging, high-impact work to grow your career.
- Performance-driven compensation with multipliers for outsized impact, bonus programs, equity ownership, and 401(k) matching.
- Best-in-class benefits to fuel your work, including 100% paid health insurance for employees with 90% coverage for dependents.
- Lifestyle wallet — a highly flexible benefits spending account for wellness, learning, and more.
- Employer-paid life & disability insurance, fertility benefits, and mental health benefits.
- Time off to recharge including company holidays, paid time off, sick time, parental leave, and more!
- Exceptional office experience with catered meals, events, and comfortable workspaces.
In addition to the base pay range listed below, this role is also eligible for bonus opportunities + equity + benefits.
Base pay for the successful applicant will depend on a variety of job-related factors, which may include education, training, experience, location, business needs, or market demands. The expected base pay range for this role is based on the location where the work will be performed and is aligned to one of 3 compensation zones. For other locations not listed, compensation can be discussed with your recruiter during the interview process.
Base Pay Range:
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If our mission energizes you and you’re ready to build the future of finance, we look forward to seeing your application.
Robinhood provides equal opportunity for all applicants, offers reasonable accommodations upon request, and complies with applicable equal employment and privacy laws. Inclusion is built into how we hire and work—welcoming different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences so everyone can do their best. Please review the Privacy Policy for your country of application.