Big Data Engineer

Description

ABOUT PLACER.AI:

Placer.ai is transforming how organizations understand the physical world. Our location analytics platform provides unprecedented visibility into locations, markets, and consumer behavior. Placer empowers thousands of customers—from Fortune 500 companies, to local governments and nonprofits— to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
What sets us apart? We've built the most advanced location intelligence platform in the market while maintaining an uncompromising commitment to privacy, proving that powerful analytics and responsible data practices can coexist.
Our growth reflects the market's demand: we reached $100M in annual recurring revenue within just 6 years of launching, achieved unicorn status with a $1B+ valuation in 2022, and continue to expand rapidly as one of North America's fastest-growing tech companies. We're creating a $100B+ market opportunity, and we're just getting started.
Named one of Forbes America's Best Startup Employers and a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company, we're building a culture where innovation thrives, collaboration is the norm, and every team member contributes to reshaping how the world understands location.

SUMMARY:

As a Senior Big Data Engineer, working within Placer.ai's Mobility Group, you will play a pivotal role in designing, developing, and maintaining the data infrastructure that powers our location analytics platform.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

- Data Pipeline Architecture and Development: Design, build, and optimize robust and scalable data pipelines to process, transform, and integrate large volumes of data from various sources into our analytics platform.

- Data Quality Assurance: Implement data validation, cleansing, and enrichment techniques to ensure high-quality and consistent data across the platform.

- Performance Optimization: Identify performance bottlenecks and optimize data processing and storage mechanisms to enhance overall system performance and reduce latency.

- Cloud Infrastructure: Work extensively with cloud-based technologies (GCP and AWS), to design and manage scalable data infrastructure.

- Collaboration: Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Data Analysts, Data Scientists, Product Managers, and Software Engineers to understand requirements and deliver solutions that meet business needs.

- Data Governance: Implement and enforce data governance practices, ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and best practices related to data privacy and security.

- Monitoring and Maintenance: Monitor the health and performance of data pipelines, troubleshoot issues, and ensure high availability of data infrastructure.

- Mentorship: Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior data engineers, fostering a culture of learning and growth within the team.

REQUIREMENTS:

- Strong hands-on Apache Spark experience — building and operating pipelines in production, not just familiarity

- Proficiency in PySpark or Scala for Spark development

- Proven track record delivering ETL pipelines and data integration at scale

- Solid SQL skills and command of data modeling concepts

- Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, or Azure) in a production data context

- Comfortable working with distributed systems and big data formats (Parquet, Delta Lake)

Nice to have:

- Experience with pipeline orchestration tools, particularly Apache Airflow

- Exposure to the geospatial or location analytics domain

- Familiarity with Hadoop ecosystem components

- Background in both Python and Scala (beyond Spark context)

WHY JOIN PLACER.AI?

- Join a rocketship! We are pioneers of a new market that we are creating

- Take a central and critical role at Placer.ai

- Work with, and learn from, top-notch talent

- Competitive salary

- Excellent benefits

NOTEWORTHY LINKS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PLACER

- Placer.ai's $100M round C funding (unicorn valuation!)

- See our data in action at The Anchor

- Placer.ai in the news

- Video: About Placer for Commercial Real Estate

- Video Playlist: Placer Brand & Explainer Videos

Placer.ai is committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace and promoting a safe, healthy working environment for all employees.

Placer.ai is an equal opportunity employer and has a global remote workforce. Placer.ai's applicants are considered solely based on their qualifications, without regard to an applicant's disability or need for accommodation. Any Placer.ai applicant who requires reasonable accommodations during the application process should contact Placer.ai's Human Resources Department to make the need for an accommodation known.

May 2026