Staff Data Engineer at Front
San Francisco, CA
$237,000–$270,000
Jul 23, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Jul 25, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Staff Data Engineer role focused on building and owning the analytics data platform at a B2B SaaS company. Day-to-day work involves designing and maintaining scalable data pipelines, data models, and schemas in Snowflake, automating processes to enable self-serve data access, and ensuring data quality and reliability through monitoring frameworks. The role suits an experienced data engineer comfortable working across SQL, Python, and workflow tools like Airflow, who can also engage directly with analysts, data scientists, and non-technical stakeholders.
Staff level · 5+ years · San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 30 people in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (database architects). range 20–65
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $179,727 (middle half $166,748–$216,836).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
This role sits at the boundary between 15-1243 (Database Architects — pipeline design, data modeling, Snowflake warehouse ownership) and 15-1252 (Software Developers — writing modular/maintainable code, building platforms, automation). The primary day-to-day emphasis on data architecture, schema design, and pipeline ownership tips it to 15-1243, but the software-engineering depth is a genuine runner-up signal.
The big-data technology requirement lists HDFS, EMR, Redshift, Spark, Flink, and Presto as interchangeable options ('at least one'); all are captured as alternatives on a single skill.
Airflow is listed as 'preferably Airflow' within the required qualifications block — the preference is for the specific tool, not for the requirement itself, so it is treated as a hard gate with common alternatives noted.
The JD states 'BS/BA … or equivalent practical experience', so no formal degree is hard-required.
The role is hybrid (Tue–Wed–Thu in-office in the SF Bay Area); remote=false reflects that it cannot be done fully remotely.
No compensation figures are provided in the posting.
The 'Staff' title is explicitly used in the job title. The scope — setting technical direction across the data platform, owning SLAs, vetting tools and vendors — is consistent with a Staff-level individual contributor, not merely a Senior engineer.
Read the full posting
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