Staff / Principal

Fivetran and dbt Labs are bringing together two industry-leading companies with a shared mission: helping organizations unlock the full value of their data. Fivetran automates data movement across systems, clouds, engines, and tools, while dbt Labs pioneered analytics engineering. Together, they support thousands of organizations building a trusted foundation for analytics, AI, and better business decisions.

Fivetran is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join the Platform Engineering Group, focused on building and evolving the core systems that power the data movement platform. In this role, you will define and drive the long-term technical vision for critical platform components, enabling Fivetran to scale from thousands to tens of thousands of customers. You will operate at the intersection of architecture, execution, and organizational influence, solving deeply complex distributed systems challenges while shaping engineering direction across multiple teams.

• Java (JVM, JIT, GC tuning, thread management)
• JUnit
• Claude Code
• Docker and Kubernetes
• AWS, GCP
• Bazel, BuildKite
• Observability tools (Datadog, Grafana)

• Define Technical Strategy: Set the long-term architectural vision for core platform systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and efficiency.
• Lead Complex System Design: Drive the design and evolution of large-scale distributed systems that power Fivetran's data movement platform.
• Drive Cross-Team Initiatives: Lead high-impact projects spanning multiple teams, align stakeholders, and ensure successful execution.
• Raise the Engineering Bar: Establish best practices for system design, code quality, and operational excellence across the organization.
• Mentor and Influence: Guide and mentor senior and staff engineers, shaping technical decision-making beyond your immediate team.
• Improve Platform Performance: Identify and lead efforts to optimize system performance, reliability, and cost at scale.
• Champion Innovation: Evaluate and introduce new technologies and approaches to improve developer experience and platform capabilities.

• Extensive Experience: 12+ years of software engineering experience, with deep expertise in building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• System Design Mastery: Proven ability to design and evolve complex, scalable, and reliable platform architectures.
• Technical Leadership: Demonstrated experience leading cross-team technical initiatives and influencing engineering direction.
• Strong Programming Skills: Expertise in backend development (Java preferred) with a solid foundation in data structures and system fundamentals.
• Performance & Reliability: Experience optimizing system performance, scalability, and cost in high-throughput systems.
• Communication & Influence: Strong ability to communicate complex technical ideas and influence senior stakeholders.
• Ownership & Ambiguity: Track record of driving ambiguous, high-impact problems from definition to execution.

• Experience in data processing (ETL, ELT) and/or cloud-based platforms
• Experience working in startup environments.

Oakland Pay Range: $225,813—$282,266 USD. Perks include 100% employer-paid medical insurance, generous paid time away including paid vacation or flexible/unlimited vacation depending on role and country, paid sick time, inclusive parental leave, paid holidays including a year-end Global Week of Rest, volunteer days off, RSU stock grants, professional development and training opportunities, company virtual happy hours, free food, team-building activities, monthly cell phone stipend, and access to a mental health support platform. Benefits may vary by country and worker type.

Apply through the Fivetran careers page for this role.