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Data Leader Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Principal Data Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

  • Medical

  • Dental

  • Vision

  • Life

  • Retirement

Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era ... Department Overview Data Solutions is the force that propels Salesforce into the AI era, informing ...

Data Scientist

Cerritos, CA · On-site

$90K - $120K/yr

Partner closely with business leaders in Marketing, Product, Operations, Buying team to plan out valuable data science projects * Conduct complex analysis and build models to uncover key learning ...

Data Engineering Manager

San Francisco, CA · On-site +1

$172K - $254K/yr

  • Medical

  • Dental

  • Vision

  • Life

  • Retirement

Collaborate with Doximity's Data Leadership team to ensure alignment and success across the entire Data Organization. * Manage individual Data Engineers to foster learning, growth and success at ...

Leader of Data and Analytics

Auburn, CA

$118K - $140K/yr

  • Medical

  • Dental

  • Vision

  • Retirement

  • PTO

Ensure accurate data collection, validation, and reporting for quality programs while partnering with leadership to drive performance improvement, clinical quality, and evidence-based care. * Lead ...

Leader of Data and Analytics

Auburn, CA

$118K - $140K/yr

  • Medical

  • Dental

  • Vision

  • Retirement

  • PTO

Ensure accurate data collection, validation, and reporting for quality programs while partnering with leadership to drive performance improvement, clinical quality, and evidence-based care. * Lead ...

Senior Data Scientist, Product

Menlo Park, CA · On-site

$179 - $210/hr

  • Medical

  • Life

  • Retirement

  • PTO

We're looking for a dedicated and ambitious data science leader to help us accelerate product growth through world-class experimentation, analysis, and data-informed strategy. Your work will directly ...

Product leadership: You will use data to shape development, quantify new opportunities, identify upcoming challenges, and ensure the products we build bring value to people, businesses, and Meta. You ...

Senior Data Scientist

Cerritos, CA · On-site

$120K - $150K/yr

Partner closely with business leaders in Marketing, Product, Operations, Buying team to plan out valuable data science projects * Mentor junior data scientists and analysts, providing guidance on ...

Product leadership: You will use data to shape development, quantify new opportunities, identify upcoming challenges, and ensure the products we build bring value to people, businesses, and Meta. You ...

Product leadership: You will use data to shape development, quantify new opportunities, identify upcoming challenges, and ensure the products we build bring value to people, businesses, and Meta. You ...

Showing results 21-40

Data Leader information

What is a data leader?

A Data Leader is a senior professional responsible for developing and implementing an organization’s data strategy, ensuring that data assets are effectively managed and leveraged to drive business value. They oversee data governance, data quality, analytics initiatives, and often manage teams of data scientists, engineers, and analysts. Data Leaders play a key role in shaping data-driven decision-making, aligning data projects with business objectives, and ensuring compliance with data regulations. Their work helps organizations unlock insights from data, improve operations, and gain a competitive advantage.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a data leader?

To thrive as a Data Leader, you need expertise in data analytics, data management, and strategy, often backed by an advanced degree in a quantitative field and experience in data-centric roles. Familiarity with tools like SQL, Python, data visualization platforms (e.g., Tableau, Power BI), and cloud data systems is typically required. Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills help drive organizational alignment and data-driven decision-making. These competencies are crucial for shaping effective data strategies, ensuring data quality, and delivering business value through insights.

How do data leaders typically balance strategic oversight with hands-on involvement in data projects?

Data Leaders often face the challenge of balancing high-level strategy with direct involvement in data initiatives. While their primary responsibility is to set the vision for data governance, analytics, and architecture, they also need to stay engaged with teams to ensure alignment and remove obstacles. This often means participating in key project meetings, reviewing major deliverables, and facilitating communication between technical and business stakeholders. Effective Data Leaders delegate operational tasks but remain accessible for critical decision-making and mentorship, fostering both team autonomy and strategic coherence.

What is the difference between Data Leader vs Data Analyst?

AspectData Leader
ResponsibilitiesStrategic data management, setting data vision, leading data teams
Skills & CertificationsData strategy, leadership, advanced analytics, often with certifications like CDMP or DAMA
Work EnvironmentExecutive-level, cross-departmental collaboration, senior management
FocusHigh-level data governance, business impact, long-term data strategy

While a Data Leader focuses on strategic oversight, governance, and leading data initiatives at an organizational level, a Data Analyst primarily handles data analysis, reporting, and supporting decision-making through data insights. Both roles require strong analytical skills, but the Data Leader emphasizes leadership and strategy, whereas the Data Analyst concentrates on technical analysis and data interpretation.

What cities in California are hiring for Data Leader jobs?

Cities in California with the most Data Leader job openings:

Infographic showing various Data Leader job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 82% Full Time, 12% Part Time, 2% Temporary, and 3% Contract. Highlights an 86% Physical, 4% Hybrid, and 10% Remote job distribution.

Principal Data Engineer

Salesforce

San Francisco, CA • On-site

Other

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Retirement

Posted 12 days ago


Salesforce rating

8.1

Company rating: 8.1 out of 10

Based on 58 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz

112th of 244 rated software companies


Job description

To get the best candidate experience, please consider applying for a maximum of 3 roles within 12 months to ensure you are not duplicating efforts.
Job Category
Software Engineering
Job Details
About Salesforce
Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn't a buzzword - it's a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all.
Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You're in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce.
Department Overview
Data Solutions is the force that propels Salesforce into the AI era, informing-through trusted data and artificial intelligence-the path forward to be smarter in every dimension. Delivering everything from financial forecasting and customer health to adoption insights and curated data, Data Solutions serves as the unbiased partner to every data trailblazer across Salesforce. As part of this organization, Cloud Analytics operates as the strategic product analytics engine, partnering directly with cloud leadership to drive high-stakes decision-making through rigorous metrics and insights. Sitting within Cloud Analytics as a forward-deployed partner to the AgentExchange and Partner Ecosystem business, this role collaborates hand-in-hand with product, engineering, and data leadership to co-build the foundations, core metrics, strategic insights, and autonomous agents driving the product forward.
Role Description
As a Principal Data Engineer for AgentExchange, you will serve as the chief data architect and technical authority powering our next-generation product analytics and AI platform. In this high-leverage position, you will design, scale, and maintain the enterprise-grade data infrastructure, real-time pipelines, and feature stores that feed both high-stakes decision systems and autonomous AI agents. Operating on the front lines alongside decision scientists, software engineers, and product leaders, you will transform high-volume data streams into pristine, reliable, and high-performing technical foundations.
Responsibilities
  • Data Architecture & Strategy: Architect, build, and scale the foundational data platforms, lakehouses, and high-throughput pipelines that power AgentExchange product analytics, metrics, and agentic workflows.
  • Agentic Infrastructure & Orchestration: Design and deploy production-grade data pipelines, feature stores, and event-driven architectures that enable autonomous AI agents to operate reliably at enterprise scale.
  • Platform Excellence & Reliability: Establish end-to-end data governance, quality frameworks, lineage tracking, and performance monitoring to ensure zero-downtime reliability for mission-critical data assets.
  • Cross-Functional Engineering Leadership: Serve as the principal technical authority on data architecture, partnering seamlessly with decision scientists, software engineers, and product managers to translate complex business needs into elegant technical systems.
  • Technical Roadmap Ownership: Co-own the long-term data technology roadmap for AgentExchange, anticipating scale bottlenecks and driving architectural evolution ahead of product growth.
  • Mentorship & Engineering Rigor: Elevate the engineering bar across Cloud Analytics by establishing standards for code quality, testing, CI/CD, and system design, while mentoring engineers across the broader organization.

Required Skills
  • Proven Experience: 7+ years of hands-on data engineering experience building complex, enterprise-scale data platforms, distributed systems, and real-time data pipelines. Must have a track record of actively shipping production code alongside architectural leadership.
  • Systems Architecture & Data Engineering: Mastery of modern distributed computing, data lakehouse architectures, and cloud data warehouses, alongside deep expertise in orchestration tools (e.g., Airflow, Dagster).
  • AI & Agentic Infrastructure: Demonstrated experience engineering data systems for LLMs, agentic workflows, feature stores, or vector retrieval pipelines. You build the data plumbing that makes AI systems fast, accurate, and scalable.
  • Software Engineering Mastery: Expert proficiency in Python, Scala, or Java, alongside expert-level SQL tuning and deep familiarity with software engineering best practices (Docker, Git, CI/CD, IaC).
  • Technical Foundation: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline (or equivalent practical impact).
  • Architectural Influence: Strong communication skills with a proven track record of distilling complex system architecture decisions into clear business trade-offs for technical and non-technical executives alike.

Unleash Your Potential
When you join Salesforce, you'll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance and be your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you can do your best. Together, we'll bring the power of Agentforce to organizations of all sizes and deliver amazing experiences that customers love. Apply today to not only shape the future - but to redefine what's possible - for yourself, for AI, and the world.
Accommodations
If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via this Accommodations Request Form.
Please note that Salesforce uses artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help our recruiters assess and evaluate candidates' resumes and qualifications throughout the recruiting process. Humans will always make any candidate selection and hiring decisions. Please see our Candidate Privacy Statement for more information about how we use your personal data and your rights, including with regard to use of AI tools and opt out options.
Posting Statement
Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non-discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. What does that mean exactly? It means that at Salesforce, we believe in equality for all. And we believe we can lead the path to equality in part by creating a workplace that's inclusive, and free from discrimination. Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal. Any employee or potential employee will be assessed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications - without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, transgender status, age, disability, veteran or marital status, political viewpoint, or other classifications protected by law. This policy applies to current and prospective employees, no matter where they are in their Salesforce employment journey. It also applies to recruiting, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, assessment of job performance, discipline, termination, and everything in between. Recruiting, hiring, and promotion decisions at Salesforce are fair and based on merit. The same goes for compensation, benefits, promotions, transfers, reduction in workforce, recall, training, and education.
In the United States, compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program. More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Salesforce will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
At Salesforce, we believe in equitable compensation practices that reflect the dynamic nature of labor markets across various regions.The typical base salary range for this position is $197,300 - $313,700 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $237,700 - $344,700 annually.The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.

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