Staff Software Engineer - Semantic Layer

dbt Labs dbt Labs · Data AI · India · Remote · Engineering

Staff Software Engineer at dbt Labs to join the Semantic Layer team. The role involves designing, building, and maintaining core features of MetricFlow, an open-source semantic engine. Responsibilities include owning the open-source project, collaborating with other teams, improving performance and reliability, and partnering with product and developer-relations. Requires strong Python and SQL skills, experience with systems involving parsing/compilation/transformation, and solid software design principles. Nice-to-haves include open-source contribution experience, familiarity with semantic layer technologies, and data warehousing internals.

What you'd actually do

  1. Design, build, and maintain core features of MetricFlow, including metric definitions, query compilation, dimensional modeling, and SQL generation across multiple data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, and others).
  2. Own MetricFlow as an open-source project — triage issues, review external pull requests, manage releases, and engage the community on GitHub and in Slack.
  3. Collaborate with engineers across dbt Cloud, dbt Core, and the Semantic Layer service to ensure MetricFlow integrates seamlessly with the rest of the dbt ecosystem.
  4. Improve performance, reliability, and observability of metric query execution at scale.
  5. Partner with product, design, and developer-relations teammates to translate customer and community feedback into shipped improvements.

Skills

Required

  • Python
  • SQL
  • system design (parsing, compilation, transformation)
  • software design principles

Nice to have

  • open-source contribution
  • dbt
  • MetricFlow
  • LookML
  • Cube
  • data warehousing internals
  • query optimization
  • analytical SQL dialects
  • CI/CD
  • GitHub Actions
  • release engineering for Python libraries
  • developer-facing APIs, SDKs, or CLIs

What the JD emphasized

  • core features of MetricFlow
  • MetricFlow as an open-source project
  • MetricFlow integrates seamlessly
  • metric query execution at scale
  • customer and community feedback into shipped improvements
  • Strong professional software engineering experience, with a strong track record of shipping production systems.
  • Deep proficiency in Python
  • Strong SQL fundamentals
  • Experience designing systems that involve parsing, compilation, or transformation
  • Solid grasp of software design principles