Pay
Higher than most similar jobs
$180K–$440K against $127K–$190K, the middle half of what similar US postings state.
From 2,133 postings in the last year. Stated ranges, not salaries paid.
Software Engineer, Data Platform
Palo Alto, CA
Open 6 months, first seen by us 204 days ago- Pay
USD 180,000–440,000/yearAnnual period assumed — pay source
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS: $180,000 - $440,000 USD Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at SpaceXSI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.
Read the full posting- Work setting
- Not stated
- Employment
- Not stated
What you’ll work on
Full postingDesign and implement high-throughput, low-latency data ingestion and transport systems
Build interfaces, APIs, and pipelines enabling teams to query, process, and move data at petabyte scale
Collaborate with ML, product, and infrastructure teams to unblock critical data workflows
From the employer’s posting
RESPONSIBILITIES: Design and implement high-throughput, low-latency data ingestion and transport systems Scale and optimize multi-tenant Kafka infrastructure supporting real-time workloads
Extend and tune Spark, Flink, and Trino for demanding production pipelines Build interfaces, APIs, and pipelines enabling teams to query, process, and move data at petabyte scale Debug and optimize distributed systems, with a focus on reliability and performance under load
Debug and optimize distributed systems, with a focus on reliability and performance under load Collaborate with ML, product, and infrastructure teams to unblock critical data workflows BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:
What you’ll bring
All qualificationsCore experience
- Experience with Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, or Hadoop in production
- Proficiency in Rust, Go, Scala or similar systems languages
- Proven expertise in distributed systems, stream processing, or large-scale data platforms
Qualification wording
Experience with Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, or Hadoop in production
Proficiency in Rust, Go, Scala or similar systems languages
Proven expertise in distributed systems, stream processing, or large-scale data platforms
Benefits in the posting
Full benefits wording- Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at SpaceXSI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.
From the employer’s posting.
Posting record
Report an errorOpen 6 monthsWe first saw this posting 204 days ago and it is still up. Roles open this long are often slow to fill or kept open to collect applications.
- Status in our records
- Live
- First seen by us
- Apr 14, 2026204 days ago
- Recorded sightings
- 294
- Last seen by us
- Nov 4, 2026
These dates show when we found the posting. Check the employer’s website to confirm it is still accepting applications.
How this job compares
Time since we first saw it
Day 204
Up longer than most. Similar jobs usually come down between day 6 and day 54.
From 10,764 similar postings that came down. Coming down is not always a hire.
SpaceXSI is hiring
10 open jobs
Open jobs by the week we first saw them, last 12 weeks.
- Hiring has slowed
- Its jobs tend to stay up a long time
See how this role fits your experience
Add your resume and we’ll mark which of these tools you already use, and point out anything in the posting that could rule you out.
- Rust
- Scala
- Hadoop
- Kafka
- Spark
- Trino
- Go
Where the posting names them
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE: - Proficiency in Rust, Go, Scala or similar systems languages - Proven expertise in distributed systems, stream processing, or large-scale data platforms
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS: - Experience with Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, or Hadoop in production PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:
SOFTWARE ENGINEER, DATA PLATFORM The Data Platform team builds and operates the infrastructure responsible for all large-scale data transport and processing across the company. We own and manage core systems including Apache Kafka, HDFS, Spark, Flink, and Trino, enabling real-time ML pipelines, feed ranking, experimentation, analytics, and observability at petabyte scale. Our team deals with latency-critical workloads, high-throughput streaming, and distributed compute systems that require fault tolerance, performance, and absolute reliability. As a software engineer on the Data Platform team, you will design, build, and operate the distributed systems powering SpaceXSI's data movement and compute. You will take ownership of infrastructure components that process trillions of events daily, driving the scalability, performance, and reliability of the systems that power product and ML workloads across the company.
- Design and implement high-throughput, low-latency data ingestion and transport systems - Scale and optimize multi-tenant Kafka infrastructure supporting real-time workloads - Extend and tune Spark, Flink, and Trino for demanding production pipelines
- Scale and optimize multi-tenant Kafka infrastructure supporting real-time workloads - Extend and tune Spark, Flink, and Trino for demanding production pipelines - Build interfaces, APIs, and pipelines enabling teams to query, process, and move data at petabyte scale
Your next step
Complete your application on job-boards.greenhouse.io. The employer’s form will show what is required.
Applying through Greenhouse
- No account needed: the form is one page, with an “Autofill my application” option that reads your resume.
- Greenhouse doesn’t read resumes over 2.5 MB, or details placed in a header, footer, text box, table or second column. The file still attaches, but a recruiter has to type you in by hand.
Already applied? Track this application
About the role
We file this job under Data Engineer, by the work the posting describes.
Data engineers build and run the pipelines that copy data out of apps and outside services into a warehouse or lake, and fix them when a source changes or a load fails.
Expect SQL, Python, a cloud platform, a scheduler such as Airflow, and often tools for large data such as Spark or Kafka.
An analytics engineer works one step later, turning the raw data a data engineer lands into clean tables people can query.
US government figures for database architects
- Median yearly pay, May 2025
- $139,500
- Expected change, 2025 to 2035
- 9.4% more jobsagainst 3.5% for all jobs
The government has no code for data engineers, so these figures are for the closest group, database architects, which includes data integration and data warehousing specialists.
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025) and Employment Projections (2025 to 2035). Occupation code 15-1243.
Job description
SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary and expanding consciousness to the stars.
SpaceXSI is building Super Intelligence to help humanity understand the universe. Our teams are building the full Super Intelligence stack: from our Colossus supercomputers, to Grok models, to our suite of applications, including Grok Bot, Grok Build, Grok Imagine, Grok Voice, and X. We're creating a powerful flywheel where more compute trains better models, better models power more useful products, and what we learn from people using those products shapes what we build next.
SOFTWARE ENGINEER, DATA PLATFORM
The Data Platform team builds and operates the infrastructure responsible for all large-scale data transport and processing across the company. We own and manage core systems including Apache Kafka, HDFS, Spark, Flink, and Trino, enabling real-time ML pipelines, feed ranking, experimentation, analytics, and observability at petabyte scale. Our team deals with latency-critical workloads, high-throughput streaming, and distributed compute systems that require fault tolerance, performance, and absolute reliability.
As a software engineer on the Data Platform team, you will design, build, and operate the distributed systems powering SpaceXSI's data movement and compute. You will take ownership of infrastructure components that process trillions of events daily, driving the scalability, performance, and reliability of the systems that power product and ML workloads across the company.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Design and implement high-throughput, low-latency data ingestion and transport systems
- Scale and optimize multi-tenant Kafka infrastructure supporting real-time workloads
- Extend and tune Spark, Flink, and Trino for demanding production pipelines
- Build interfaces, APIs, and pipelines enabling teams to query, process, and move data at petabyte scale
- Debug and optimize distributed systems, with a focus on reliability and performance under load
- Collaborate with ML, product, and infrastructure teams to unblock critical data workflows
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience with Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, or Hadoop in production
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:
- Proficiency in Rust, Go, Scala or similar systems languages
- Proven expertise in distributed systems, stream processing, or large-scale data platforms
- Strong debugging, profiling, and performance optimization skills
- Track record of shipping and maintaining critical infrastructure
- Comfortable working in fast-moving, high-stakes environments with minimal guardrails
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:
$180,000 - $440,000 USD
Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at SpaceXSI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.
SpaceXSI is an equal opportunity employer. For details on data processing, view our Recruitment Privacy Notice.
Source details
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Source excerptsSelected passages from the saved posting. Check the full description for conditions and exceptions.
- Pay
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS: $180,000 - $440,000 USD Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at SpaceXSI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.
- Location & working pattern
Palo Alto, CA
Working pattern and location restrictions need checking in the full posting.
- Work authorization
No clear work-authorization passage found. Eligibility is unconfirmed.