Staff+ Engineer - Foundational Data Plane

Atlan

9h • Remote

About The Position

Data is at the core of modern business, yet many teams struggle with its overwhelming volume and complexity. At Atlan, we’re changing that. As the world’s first active metadata platform, we help organisations transform data chaos into clarity and seamless collaboration.
From Fortune 500 leaders to hyper-growth startups, from automotive innovators redefining mobility to healthcare organisations saving lives, and from Wall Street powerhouses to Silicon Valley trailblazers — we empower ambitious teams across industries to unlock the full potential of their data.
Recognised as leaders by Gartner and Forrester and backed by Insight Partners, Atlan is at the forefront of reimagining how humans and data work together. Joining us means becoming part of a movement to shape a future where data drives extraordinary outcomes.
Meet the Team
Atlan is building the context layer for AI agents and applications - transforming how data platforms power the next generation of AI.
Our team works on systems handling billions of assets, serving 100K+ users, with 99.99% availability targets.
We're looking for a Staff, Sr. Staff, or Principal Engineer to help architect and scale the foundational data plane that makes it easy to build apps, agents, and solutions for the AI era.
What You’ll Do
This is a high-agency role where you'll define technical direction, drive multi-quarter initiatives, and pioneer AI-native development practices.

Requirements

• 8+ years in platform engineering, infrastructure, or backend systems at a SaaS company
• Experience building enterprise-scale distributed systems at scale
• Deep expertise in multi-tenant architectures and tenant isolation strategies
• Strong Kubernetes, containerization, and cloud infrastructure skills (AWS/GCP/Azure)
• Hands-on experience with distributed systems patterns—service mesh, event-driven architecture, orchestration
• Track record of driving multi-quarter technical initiatives from concept through production at scale
• Deep Expertise in One or More of the following
• Lakehouse architectures
• Vector stores
• Graph databases
• Streaming systems

Nice To Haves

• Experience designing contract-driven or schema-first data platforms
• Familiarity with Temporal or similar workflow orchestration systems
• Data quality frameworks, observability systems, and cost attribution at scale
• Experience supporting enterprise workloads with strict compliance requirements
• CI/CD pipeline design and GitOps practices

Responsibilities

• Design and build platform services—APIs, infrastructure components, runtime systems, and ingestion frameworks—at enterprise scale
• Architect the context store that transforms lakehouse infrastructure into AI-ready systems with multimodal capabilities (structured, unstructured, vector, graph)
• Solve complex multi-tenant isolation and scaling problems for enterprise SaaS
• Design data contracts governing ingestion, validation, processing, routing, storage, and serving across heterogeneous systems
• Own critical shared infrastructure including lakehouse (Iceberg/Polaris), vector stores, graph databases, and OLTP systems
• Drive technical standards through RFCs, architecture reviews, and documentation
• Mentor senior engineers and influence architecture decisions across teams
• Write production code using AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Cursor)
• Debug distributed systems issues across Kubernetes, workflow orchestration, and microservices

Benefits

• Ownership from Day One: Whether you're an intern or a full-time teammate, you’ll own impactful projects, chart your growth, and collaborate with some of the best minds in the industry.
• Limitless Opportunities: At Atlan, your growth has no boundaries. If you’re ready to take initiative, the sky’s the limit.
• A Global Data Community: We’re deeply embedded in the modern data stack, contributing to open-source projects, sponsoring meet-ups, and empowering team members to grow through conferences and learning opportunities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed