Sr. Staff Data Engineer
Archer · San Jose, CA
$207,400–$259,200from the description
Jul 15, 2026
San Jose, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual-contributor role focused on designing and evolving a data warehouse and lakehouse architecture, including dimensional modeling, semantic layer design, and Medallion Architecture governance. The work spans schema design, storage and partitioning strategy, data quality frameworks, and building production pipelines, in close collaboration with analytics engineers and operational stakeholders. Best suited to an experienced data engineer with deep warehouse design expertise who is comfortable setting technical direction on a small team.
Staff level · 7+ years · National · 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
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $142,568 (middle half $111,775–$173,013). This posting is about at that midpoint.
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 (6)
No work location is specified in the posting. Archer is headquartered in San Jose, CA, but the JD names no city, state, or remote policy — location is genuinely unclear.
The role is titled 'Senior Staff Data Engineer.' The seniority assessment maps to Staff: the JD explicitly uses the 'Senior Staff' label and describes org-wide architectural authority (setting technical direction, defining standards across the company, architecture reviews), which is consistent with a Staff-level scope rather than a typical Senior IC role.
SOC classification is a close call between 15-1243 (Database Architects — warehouse/lakehouse design, data modeling, schema governance) and 15-1252 (Software Developers — pipeline engineering, Python transformation work). The dominant emphasis on warehouse architecture, dimensional modeling, Medallion Architecture design, and data governance tips the balance to 15-1243.
Orchestration tools (Airflow or Prefect) appear in the required qualifications section as 'familiarity with,' which is softer language than the other requirements; however, they are listed under the main requirements block and are treated as hard gates accordingly.
dbt is listed under the 'Nice to Have' section and is marked as preferred.
Agentic/AI-assisted data infrastructure and aerospace/manufacturing experience also appear under 'Nice to Have' but name no specific technology or tool and are omitted from the skills list per extraction rules.
Read the full posting
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