Staff Data Engineer

PayPal PayPal · Fintech · San Jose, CA +1 · Data Engineering

This role is for a Staff Data Engineer at PayPal, focusing on designing and implementing data systems, architectures, and pipelines to support business needs and decision-making. Responsibilities include analyzing complex datasets, ensuring data quality and integrity, mentoring junior engineers, and collaborating with cross-functional teams. The role emphasizes product analytics data modeling, event instrumentation governance, end-to-end pipeline development, and data quality/observability implementation.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead and manage data engineering projects, ensuring timely delivery and alignment with business goals.
  2. Develop and maintain data architectures and pipelines to support data analysis and decision-making.
  3. Analyze complex datasets to identify trends, patterns, and insights that drive strategic initiatives.
  4. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand data needs and provide actionable insights.
  5. Ensure data quality and integrity through regular audits and validation processes.

Skills

Required

  • 5+ years relevant experience
  • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
  • SQL
  • Python
  • modern orchestration tools (dbt/Airflow)
  • data modeling
  • event instrumentation
  • data quality
  • observability
  • A/B testing

Nice to have

  • mentoring junior engineers
  • documentation
  • cross-functional collaboration
  • cleaning legacy instrumentation
  • stabilizing unreliable data systems

What the JD emphasized

  • Strong product analytics data modeling
  • Event instrumentation governance experience
  • End-to-end pipeline development
  • Data quality & observability implementation
  • Experience supporting product launches & experimentation
  • Full-stack product data mindset