| Senior Software Engineer, Data Platform Lead
Kipsu is a growth stage Minneapolis-based technology company that has grown to over 130 employees. At Kipsu, we help service professionals Meet the Moment by partnering with some of the largest hospitality and healthcare brands in the world. Our best-in-class technology enables organizations around the globe to better serve their customers through streamlined messaging, data-driven performance metrics, sentiment analysis and workflow management. As one of the Twin Cities’ leading tech companies, Kipsu has cultivated a reputation for a strong company culture and is consistently recognized by the Star Tribune as a Top Workplace.
THE OPPORTUNITY
We are investing heavily in building a modern, scalable data platform that transforms data from a reporting function into a core product capability. Our vision is to enable internal teams and customers alike to access trusted, consistent, and actionable data without friction—powering everything from operational decision-making to new, monetizable data products.
As our Data Platform Lead, you will take ownership of building and evolving our data platform end-to-end. You’ll operate as a hands-on technical leader—working directly in pipelines, data models, and infrastructure while driving the day-to-day progress of the platform.
You’ll partner closely with the CTO and a small team of Data Engineers to turn vision into working systems, making pragmatic decisions and delivering real value incrementally. This is not an advisory or purely architectural role. You’ll be expected to drive execution, remove blockers, and ship meaningful improvements continuously. You’ll also play a role in ensuring our production data systems are performant and reliable, bridging the gap between transactional systems and our analytical platform.
You’ll thrive in this role if you enjoy building systems from the ground up, bringing structure to ambiguity, and leading through action.
WHAT YOU'LL DO - Build and evolve Kipsu’s data platform hands-on, including pipelines, transformations, and core data models
- Drive day-to-day execution of the data platform roadmap, ensuring steady progress and delivery of real outcomes
- Act as manager for the Data Platform team, leading a small team (currently one) of Data Engineers to design, implement, and ship scalable, reliable data pipelines
- Work directly in the stack—writing transformations, improving data models, and contributing to infrastructure as needed
- Establish and iterate on standards for modeling, testing, and observability through hands-on implementation
- Develop repeatable patterns for ingestion, transformation, and metric definition
- Guide and review new data sources, schema changes, and metric designs
- Support and optimize production data systems (MySQL, PostgreSQL) in collaboration with Platform Engineering, assisting with database reliability and scalability, including replication and performance tuning
- Contribute to operational best practices for production data systems, ensuring consistency between application databases and downstream analytics pipelines
- Contribute to technical decision-making around tools, frameworks, and platform evolution (e.g., dbt, warehouse, orchestration, semantic layer)
- Act as the technical lead for the data platform, driving priorities forward and ensuring meaningful progress
- Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to ensure data considerations are embedded in feature design and delivery
- Support the transition from ad hoc reporting to a product-minded analytics platform
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR - 5+ years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics Engineering, or Data Platform Architecture
- Strong experience with modern data stack tools (we use dbt, Redshift, Cube, Elementary, DataHub, etc.)
- Experience designing and implementing data models, transformation pipelines, and analytics layers
- Comfort working across the stack, including infrastructure and cloud environments (we use AWS)
- Experience with data quality, testing frameworks, and observability tooling
- Familiarity with operating and tuning relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL) in production environments
- A track record of owning and delivering complex technical systems, not just contributing to them
- A strong bias for action and delivery, with the ability to make sound architectural decisions
- Ability to bring structure and standards to evolving systems without over-engineering
- Experience collaborating across teams (Engineering, Architecture, Product, Data Consumers) to align on data design and usage
- Curiosity about how systems work end-to-end and a desire to continuously improve them
HOW YOU WORK - You take ownership and push work forward
- You’re comfortable operating in ambiguity and turning vision into concrete systems
- You prioritize execution and delivery while making thoughtful long-term architectural decisions
- You lead through doing, not just directing
- You hold a high bar for quality, but know when to ship and iterate
- You communicate clearly and can align stakeholders across technical and non-technical teams
PHYSICAL JOB REQUIREMENTS & WORK ENVIRONMENT
This role is primarily based in our office and includes regular, on-site time to support collaboration, connection, and shared problem-solving. In this role, you’ll engage in day-to-day work that may include: - Communicating and collaborating with teammates and/or customers through conversation, meetings, and digital tools
- Interacting with information in a variety of formats, including written, visual, and verbal
- Using standard office and technology tools to complete work effectively
- Spending time working at a desk and computer, occasionally moving around the office to connect with others
- We’re committed to building an inclusive workplace. Reasonable accommodations are available to support team members in performing the essential responsibilities of the role.
WHAT MAKES KIPSU DIFFERENT - We’re a solid, stable company, and we enthusiastically embrace our founding startup spirit– everyone pitching in and working to the same goals.
- Our culture– We have a team of highly motivated colleagues who are all in it together. We all succeed as one, and we all learn from our mistakes holding our interdependence in high regard.
- Our unique philosophy– we bootstrapped this company ourselves and are in it for the long-term. There is a distinct sense of purpose and ownership at Kipsu as we do things on our own terms.
- Remarkable growth– with nearly a decade of advancement, we continue to accelerate. It’s an exciting time to be here.
WHY YOU’LL LOVE IT HERE - Unity – Everyone here is committed to the same mission. Our core values are not platitudes but our pact. We believe in the best in each other while always reaching to be better.
- Transparency – Our leadership gets into the details. We all gather for weekly space to discover how each team is doing so that we have a full understanding of the business and think like a CEO.
- Trust – Our team members are given the trust and license to excel at their jobs, and are supported along the way to continuously grow.
- Mentorship – We all have more to learn and something to teach. The lessons are beyond technical. We celebrate our busy hive of shared growth.
- Respect – Our success and future as an industry leader depend on actionable commitment to cultivating a diverse and equitable team. Everyone here has a voice that is heard and respected. We seek open and honest conversation on our journey to be active stewards of our shared communities.
- Purpose – Everyone here is closely connected to the result of their work. Every day our team gets to see the impact of what they do enhancing the value of our customers’ work in their own professions. Our goals are explicitly tethered to our mission of building relationships.
We are proud to offer a competitive suite of benefits including: health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, 401K with a company match, unlimited/responsible vacation time, life insurance, flex spending account, and commuter benefits.
One last thing – At Kipsu, we believe that our values, success, and future as a leader in our industry require a vibrant and diverse workforce. This is one of the many challenges we seek to solve, and we are intentional and active in recruiting talent of all identities and building an environment that is inclusive of all backgrounds. We need your contribution to our team. Please consider rolling up your sleeves and joining us on our journey.
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