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Founding Data Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Xpertalent

Founding Data Engineer

San Francisco, CA

$150K - $300K/yr

Staff Data Engineer (Founding Team) Location: San Francisco (In-office) Compensation: $180,000 - $270,000 + meaningful equity Start Date: Immediate About the Company We have partnered with an elite ...

Percepta

Founding Data Engineer

Manhattan, NY · On-site

$126K - $151K/yr

About The Role We're hiring one of the founding members of Percepta's data team -- a role that lives across the full spectrum from data engineering to data science to ML engineering. You won't be ...

Percepta

Founding Data Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$150K - $400K/yr

About The Role We're hiring one of the founding members of Percepta's data team - a role that lives across the full spectrum from data engineering to data science to ML engineering. You won't be ...

Broccoli AI

Founding Data Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$180K - $230K/yr

Work closely with engineering. Understand how our systems store and produce data, including schemas, events, and architecture, and give input early on changes so the data that lands in the warehouse ...

Counsel

Founding Data Analyst

New York, NY · On-site

$150K - $175K/yr

Partner with Analytics Engineer to validate pipelines and metric definitions. * Turn messy datasets ... Prior experience as a founding or early data hire in a scaling organization, having contributed to ...

Zingage

Founding Data Platform Engineer

Manhattan, NY · On-site

$126K - $151K/yr

Build the horizontal data layer that makes every agent decision measurable. New York City Full time On-site Engineering Casey fills shifts today. Tomorrow, Casey protects authorized hours, maximizes ...

NxT Level

Senior Data Engineer

Manhattan, NY · On-site

$200K - $275K/yr

Founding Data Engineer - AI Healthcare The Opportunity Our client is building an AI-powered healthcare platform designed to make high-quality care more accessible at massive scale. They're now hiring ...

NxT Level

Senior Data Engineer

Manhattan, NY

$116K - $158K/yr

Founding Data Engineer -- AI Healthcare The Opportunity Our client is building an AI-powered healthcare platform designed to make high-quality care more accessible at massive scale. They're now ...

NxT Level

Senior Data Engineer

Manhattan, NY · On-site

$116K - $158K/yr

Founding Data Engineer -- AI Healthcare The Opportunity Our client is building an AI-powered healthcare platform designed to make high-quality care more accessible at massive scale. They're now ...

David Joseph & Company

Data Product Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$134K - $162K/yr

AI, B2B, Data, Enterprise, Insurance The Role This is a founding data hire who owns the full data ... It is a roughly even split between data infrastructure and product/backend engineering, with a ...

Harbor Compliance

Staff Data Engineer

$172K - $215K/yr

As Staff Data Engineer, you'll be a foundational technical hire, working closely with the Sr. ... founding data hire. * Familiarity with B2B SaaS and recurring revenue data models (customer ...

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Founding Data Engineer information

See salary details

$44.5K

$129.7K

$177.5K

How much do founding data engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 12, 2026, the average yearly pay for founding data engineer in the United States is $129,716.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $114,500.00 and $137,500.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is a founding data engineer?

Founding Data Engineers are among the first technical hires at a startup, responsible for designing, building, and scaling the company's data infrastructure from the ground up. They work closely with founders and early team members to define data architecture, set up data pipelines, and ensure data quality and accessibility for product development and business insights. This role often requires a blend of software engineering, data modeling, and strategic decision-making skills, as well as the flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing priorities in a startup environment.

What are the unique challenges and opportunities of being a founding data engineer at an early-stage startup?

As a Founding Data Engineer, you'll face the challenge of building data infrastructure from scratch, often with limited resources and evolving requirements. You’ll work closely with founders and cross-functional teams to define data strategies, implement pipelines, and ensure data quality. This role offers significant influence over technical decisions and architecture, and you'll likely wear multiple hats, contributing to both backend engineering and data analytics. The fast-paced environment fosters rapid skill development and provides substantial opportunities for career growth as the company scales.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a founding data engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Founding Data Engineer, you need strong expertise in data architecture, database design, and software engineering, often backed by a degree in computer science or a related field. Familiarity with cloud platforms (like AWS or GCP), ETL frameworks, programming languages (such as Python or Scala), and data warehousing tools is typically required. Exceptional problem-solving, adaptability, and collaboration skills set standout candidates apart in this role. These abilities are crucial for building scalable data systems and shaping the technical foundation of an early-stage company.

What is the difference between Founding Data Engineer vs Data Engineer?

AspectFounding Data EngineerData Engineer
Required CredentialsBachelor's or higher in CS, experience in startup environmentsBachelor's or higher in CS, relevant data tools experience
Work EnvironmentEarly-stage startups, high flexibility, broad responsibilitiesEstablished companies, specialized roles, structured teams
Employer & Industry UsageFounding teams, startups, tech companiesTech firms, finance, healthcare, large organizations
Search & Comparison IntentUnderstanding startup data roles, early-stage responsibilitiesStandard data engineering roles, career progression

The main difference between a Founding Data Engineer and a Data Engineer lies in their work environment and responsibilities. Founding Data Engineers typically work in startups, handling broad tasks and building data infrastructure from scratch, while Data Engineers in established companies focus on specific data pipelines within structured teams. Both roles require similar technical skills and educational backgrounds, but their scope and context differ significantly.

More about Founding Data Engineer jobs

What cities are hiring for Founding Data Engineer jobs?

Cities with the most Founding Data Engineer job openings:

What states have the most Founding Data Engineer jobs?

States with the most job openings for Founding Data Engineer jobs include:

What are popular job titles related to Founding Data Engineer jobs?

For Founding Data Engineer jobs, the most frequently searched job titles are:

Founding Data Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Founding Data Engineer job openings in the United States as of September 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% Internship, 1% As Needed, 84% Full Time, 11% Part Time, and 3% Contract. Highlights an 85% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 12% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $129,716 per year, or $62.4 per hour.

Founding Data Engineer

San Francisco, CA

Xpertalent
See more jobs at Xpertalentexternal

$150K - $300K/yr

Full-time

Re-posted 21 days ago

Job description

Staff Data Engineer (Founding Team)

Location: San Francisco (In-office)
Compensation: $180,000 – $270,000 + meaningful equity
Start Date: Immediate

About the Company

We have partnered with an elite team in SF building an AI-native platform that acts as an operating layer for modern organizations, helping leaders understand how their business actually runs, and where to optimize, automate, or restructure.

They are early, well-funded by top-tier investors, and already live with high-profile customers across enterprise, government, and private markets.

Experience

We are looking for a Staff Data Engineer to build their data platform from the ground up.

This is a founding-level role, you’ll define the architecture, tooling, and standards that power everything from internal analytics to customer-facing intelligence and AI systems.

You’ll work directly with the founders, engineers, and customers to design and deploy scalable data systems that ingest, normalize, and activate complex enterprise data.

Responsibilities

  • Own and build the end-to-end data platform (0→1) — ingestion, transformation, modeling, and serving
  • Design and scale robust ETL/ELT pipelines across multiple enterprise data sources (HRIS, ERP, CRM, etc.)
  • Architect data models and semantic layers that power analytics, product features, and AI systems
  • Implement orchestration frameworks (e.g. Airflow, Dagster) for reliable, observable pipelines
  • Build and optimize large-scale data processing systems (batch + streaming where needed)
  • Partner closely with engineering and product to embed data into core product workflows
  • Work directly with customers to map, ingest, and operationalize messy real-world data systems
  • Establish best practices around data quality, testing, governance, and observability
  • Contribute to AI/ML pipelines (e.g. RAG, embeddings, feature pipelines) where relevant

Tech Stack (Current & Evolving)

Python • SQL • dbt • Airflow / Dagster • Snowflake / Postgres • AWS (S3, ECS, RDS) • Docker • Terraform

Why Join

  • True founding-level ownership over the data platform
  • Work on a high-impact product already in production with real customers
  • Operate at the intersection of data, AI, and enterprise systems
  • Small, elite team; high talent density, no passengers
  • Meaningful equity and the chance to shape the company from the ground up

We are looking to arrange interviews ASAP so please send across your resume and we can discuss further.