Build the Intelligence Layer for Revenue Acceleration

Polaris I/O is hiring a Lead Data Engineer to provide technical leadership and delivery support for our growing Data Engineering team.

Reporting directly to the Director of Data Engineering, this role will help transform business and technical priorities into well-defined, actionable engineering work. The Lead Data Engineer will partner with the Director to identify upcoming work, perform technical analysis and decomposition, create and refine JIRA tickets, identify dependencies and risks, and help maintain a healthy backlog of development-ready work for the team.

This is a technical leadership position without formal direct reports. The Lead Data Engineer will mentor engineers, review technical designs and code, establish development standards, support hiring, and provide input during performance reviews. Prioritization and formal people-management responsibilities will remain with the Director of Data Engineering.

Approximately 70% of this role will focus on technical leadership, planning, architecture, mentorship, and delivery support, with approximately 30% focused on hands-on development. The allocation may vary based on team and project needs.

Our stack includes:

• Python microservices using FastAPI
• Async Python
• AWS SQS and EventBridge
• Kubernetes and Amazon EKS
• Aurora PostgreSQL
• SQLAlchemy, Alembic, and Pydantic
• Configuration-driven workflows using YAML
• Event-driven data pipelines

The ideal candidate combines deep hands-on engineering experience with the ability to clarify complex technical work, guide other engineers, and improve the consistency and predictability of team delivery.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Planning and Delivery

• Partner with the Director of Data Engineering to identify, analyze, and prepare upcoming engineering work.
• Translate technical initiatives and business requirements into clearly defined JIRA epics, stories, tasks, and technical acceptance criteria.
• Break large or ambiguous initiatives into appropriately scoped units of work for Data Engineers and Senior Data Engineers.
• Identify technical dependencies, risks, assumptions, sequencing requirements, and potential delivery constraints.
• Help maintain a healthy backlog of technically refined and development-ready work.
• Facilitate or support backlog refinement, technical planning, estimation, and sprint-planning activities.
• Assist engineers when requirements, acceptance criteria, or implementation approaches require clarification.
• Track technical progress and proactively surface delivery risks or blockers to the Director. Support prioritization decisions by providing technical context, effort assessments, and recommendations. Final prioritization will remain with the Director of Data Engineering.

Technical Leadership and Architecture

• Provide system-level and component-level architectural guidance for event-driven data platforms and Python microservices.
• Review proposed technical designs for scalability, reliability, maintainability, security, performance, and operational supportability.
• Establish and promote consistent engineering patterns, coding standards, development practices, and shared components.
• Guide the design of asynchronous workflows, service boundaries, message contracts, database models, and error-handling strategies.
• Evaluate technical tradeoffs and communicate recommendations clearly to engineers and engineering leadership.
• Identify opportunities to reduce technical debt, simplify systems, improve developer productivity, and increase platform reliability.
• Develop a strong understanding of dependencies and integrations across the systems supported by the Data Engineering team.
• Help the team balance near-term delivery needs with long-term architectural health.
• Resolve technical disagreements by facilitating fact-based discussion and documenting decisions.

Team Leadership and Mentorship

• Mentor Data Engineers and Senior Data Engineers through technical guidance, pairing, design discussions, and constructive feedback.
• Perform meaningful code reviews focused on correctness, maintainability, performance, security, and adherence to team standards.
• Help engineers develop stronger system-design, debugging, database, cloud, and software-development skills.
• Encourage ownership, documentation, knowledge sharing, and effective engineering practices across the team.
• Provide the Director of Data Engineering with relevant technical observations and feedback for use during performance reviews.
• Participate in interviewing and evaluating Data Engineer candidates as the team grows.
• Help onboard new engineers and improve team documentation, development workflows, and technical training materials.
• Serve as a trusted escalation point for complex technical problems without becoming a bottleneck for team delivery.

Hands-On Development

• Contribute to production development when team priorities and leadership responsibilities permit.
• Build and maintain Python microservices using FastAPI and async Python.
• Design and maintain Aurora PostgreSQL data models using SQLAlchemy and Alembic.
• Develop event-driven data pipelines using AWS services such as SQS, EventBridge, and Lambda.
• Deploy and support containerized workloads running in Kubernetes and Amazon EKS.
• Implement data-processing capabilities including:
  • Normalization
  • Deduplication
  • Data hygiene
  • Enrichment
  • Record matching
• Tune PostgreSQL performance through query optimization, indexing, data-model improvements, and partitioning where appropriate.
• Improve observability through structured logging, monitoring, alerting, metrics, and actionable operational diagnostics.
• Debug complex issues across distributed cloud systems.
• Develop reference implementations, shared libraries, automation, and technical prototypes that other engineers can build upon.
• Write clean, testable, reusable, and maintainable production code.

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, orrelated technical field
• 2+ years of professional software engineering or data engineering experience.
• 7+ years of hands-on Python development experience.
• 3+ years of experience serving in a technical leadership capacity, such as Lead Engineer,
• Technical Lead, Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, or an equivalent role.
• Demonstrate experience leading technical work without relying on formal people-management authority.
• Experience translating large or ambiguous technical initiatives into actionable engineering plans and development tasks.
• Experience creating and refining JIRA epics, stories, tasks, technical requirements, and acceptance criteria.
• Strong experience with system design and architecture for event-driven or distributed systems.
• Production experience with:
  • Python and FastAPI
  • Async Python
  • PostgreSQL performance tuning
  • AWS event-driven services such as SQS and EventBridge
  • Kubernetes and Amazon EKS
  • SQLAlchemy, Alembic, and Pydantic
• Strong understanding of REST APIs, microservices, asynchronous processing, message-driven workflows, and service-to-service communication.
• Experience designing reliable database schemas, migrations, indexes, constraints, and data-access patterns.
• Strong debugging and incident-analysis skills in distributed cloud environments.
• Experience establishing coding standards, design patterns, code-review practices, and engineering quality expectations.
• Experience mentoring experienced engineers and providing constructive technical feedback.
• Ability to identify technical risks, dependencies, delivery constraints, and architectural tradeoffs.
• Ability to communicate technical decisions clearly in writing and in team discussions.
• Strong organizational, analytical, prioritization, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English. This role includes significant documentation and collaboration with U.S.-based team members.

Preferred:

• Experience leading technical planning, backlog refinement, estimation, or sprint-planning activities.
• Experience supporting the hiring and technical evaluation of software or data engineers.
• Experience providing technical feedback that contributes to employee-development or performance-review discussions.
• Experience creating shared frameworks, libraries, templates, or automation used by multiple engineers.
• Experience improving CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, deployment processes, and developer workflows.
• Experience designing observability strategies using structured logs, metrics, dashboards, monitoring, and alerting.
• Experience evaluating cloud infrastructure performance and cost.
• Experience with configuration-driven workflows using YAML.
• Experience supporting production systems that process high-volume, sequential, or asynchronous data.

Work Authorization Requirement 

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States on a full-time, ongoing basis without the need for current or future employer sponsorship (for example, we are not able to sponsor employment visas now or in the future).

Work Expectations 

Work Hours:   This is a full-time position that requires employees to be online and actively engaged during standard business hours, and available for occasional after-hours support.

Conflict of Interest:  You are expected to devote your full professional time and attention to Polaris I/O and not take on other employment or contract work that interferes with your responsibilities, competes with the company, or creates a potential conflict of interest.

Remote Work:  This position is fully remote; however, all work must be performed within the United States. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Regular working hours will align with the time zone.

Compensation & Benefits 

Polaris I/O offers a competitive salary, a comprehensive benefit package including medical, dental, and vision coverage, a generous PTO plan, and opportunities for professional growth and development.

Salary range: $150,000 – $172,00

Polaris I/O is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Work Authorization Requirement 

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States on a full-time, ongoing basis without the need for current or future employer sponsorship (for example, we are not able to sponsor employment visas now or in the future).

Work Expectations 

Work Hours:   This is a full-time position that requires employees to be online and actively engaged during standard business hours, and available for occasional after-hours support.

Conflict of Interest:  You are expected to devote your full professional time and attention to Polaris I/O and not take on other employment or contract work that interferes with your responsibilities, competes with the company, or creates a potential conflict of interest.

Remote Work:  This position is fully remote; however, all work must be performed within the United States. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Regular working hours will align with the time zone.

Compensation & Benefits 

Polaris I/O offers a competitive salary, a comprehensive benefit package including medical, dental, and vision coverage, a generous PTO plan, and opportunities for professional growth and development.

Salary range: $150,000 – $172,00

Polaris I/O is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Polaris I/O is seeking experienced Data Engineers to join our growing Data Engineering team. You will play a key role in developing and scaling our event-driven microservice data pipeline, which powers our CRM Integration Platform — enabling seamless, high-quality data exchange with client systems such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and Matrix.

Our architecture leverages AWS SQS and Python-based microservices (FastAPI) running in an EKS cluster, connected to an Aurora PostgreSQL backend. Additional pipelines will be built to standardize, cleanse, and enrich client data to generate actionable insights and improve commercial health outcomes for our customers.

Key Responsibilities

Microservice Development

• Design, develop, and maintain Python-based microservices (FastAPI) deployed in Kubernetes (EKS) using event-driven messaging through AWS.
• Develop YAML-driven configuration files that define client-specific workflows, ensuring configurable and reusable pipeline logic.
• Implement asynchronous Python services to optimize concurrency, performance, and scalability across distributed workloads.
• Collaborate with other developers on GitHub, follow Agile practices in Jira, and participate in regular code reviews to ensure maintainability and reliability.

Data Quality & Modeling

• Build and maintain data models in Aurora PostgreSQL using SQLAlchemy and Alembic for schema versioning and migrations.
• Implement data hygiene pipelines — including entity deduplication, normalization, enrichment, and record matching — to ensure data integrity and consistency.
• Optimize PostgreSQL performance through query tuning, indexing, and partitioning strategies for large datasets.
• Use Pydantic models for schema validation and structured data processing.
• Contribute to AI-assisted data validation, enrichment, and cleansing workflows by leveraging OpenAI APIs and performing prompt tuning to improve model accuracy and contextual understanding.

Cloud & Integration

• Design and maintain serverless and container-based data pipelines utilizing AWS SQS, EventBridge, EKS, Lambda, and Aurora PostgreSQL.
• Integrate with client CRM systems (Salesforce, Dynamics, Matrix) to extract, process, and reinsert standardized datasets.
• Collaborate closely with Salesforce and Dynamics Admins to understand data exchange and workflow requirements.
• Support data ingestion and enrichment workflows for CRM extracts such as Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities.
• Enhance pipeline monitoring, logging, and observability using structured, cloud-native logging practices.

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or related technical field.
• 7-9 years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years of hands-on Python
• Strong proficiency in relational databases, with emphasis on PostgreSQL performance tuning (query optimization, indexing, partitioning).
• Experience with AWS services such as SQS, Aurora PostgreSQL, EKS, EventBridge, S3, Lambda, Step Functions.
• Familiarity with FastAPI, async programming, and microservice orchestration.
• Proficiency in YAML and JSON for configuration and structured data management.
• Experience with SQLAlchemy, Alembic, and Pydantic for data modeling and validation.
• Solid understanding of GitHub workflows, Jira, and Agile development processes.
• Familiarity with AI/LLM tools, OpenAI APIs, and prompt tuning to refine AI-based data processing workflows.
• Exposure to CRM ecosystems (Salesforce, Dynamics, Matrix) is a plus.
• Strong debugging and troubleshooting skills in distributed cloud environments.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work collaboratively across teams.
• Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future employer sponsorship, including but not limited to ‘STEM OPT’ applicants.

Work Expectations 

Work Hours:   This is a full-time position that requires employees to be online and actively engaged during standard business hours, and available for occasional after-hours support.

Exclusivity Requirement: Candidates must not engage in employment or contract work with other companies while employed by Polaris I/O. We are seeking dedicated team members committed to contributing to our mission and goals.

Work Authorization: This role requires the ability to work lawfully in the U.S. without employment-based immigration sponsorship, now or in the future.

Compensation & Benefits 

Polaris I/O offers a competitive salary, a comprehensive benefit package including medical, dental, and vision coverage, a generous PTO plan, and opportunities for professional growth and development.

Salary range: $125,000 – $152,00

Polaris I/O is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Polaris I/O is seeking a Commercial Insight Strategist (CIS) to join our team and play a critical role in empowering key account teams with actionable intelligence. This is not a sales role—it’s a strategic function designed to uncover insights that drive high-value engagement within complex enterprise accounts.

As a CIS, you will leverage the Polaris I/O platform to analyze market signals, identify emerging opportunities, and translate raw data into compelling narratives that reshape strategic account conversations. Your insights will help account teams move beyond traditional pipeline-driven motions and into insight-led, customer-centric engagement that creates long-term business impact.

Key Responsibilities:

• Uncover Actionable Insights: Conduct in-depth research on industry trends, customer shifts, and competitive movements to surface intelligence that key account teams can act on before competitors do.
• Align Insights to Customer Priorities: seek to ensure every account strategy is rooted in insight, helping teams engage customers based on evolving priorities rather than just pitching solutions.
• Map Stakeholders & Decision Paths: Identify and track key players within customer organizations, helping account teams navigate complex decision-making networks.
• Transform Data into Strategy: Leverage the Polaris I/O platform and AI-driven insights to translate raw data into clear, strategic recommendations that resonate with customer needs.
• Collaborate & Influence: Work alongside Strategic Account Leaders to shape insights, build internal alignment, and ensure intelligence guides decision-making at the right level.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Marketing, Data Science, or a related field.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills to work cross-functionally with account teams.
• Comfortable using AI-powered tools, for data analysis while applying human judgment to validate, shape and refine strategic insights.
• Able to synthesize information from multiple sources, uncover patterns, and translate data into compelling narratives that resonate with executive audiences.
• Proficiency with CRM platforms and market research tools to support data-driven decision-making.

Bonus Qualifications:

• Background in key account strategy, market intelligence, or revenue enablement
• Experience supporting large enterprise accounts or Fortune 500 companies.
• Experience in strategic research, data analysis, or insight generation.
• Familiarity with AI-driven research tools and insight-generation platforms.

Personal Attributes:

• Curiosity & Pattern Recognition: Naturally drawn to uncovering trends and making connections that others might miss.
• Critical Thinking & Synthesis: Comfortable working with complex information, distilling it into meaningful insights that drive action.
• Active Listening & Adaptability: Able to navigate evolving priorities and tailor insights to different perspectives.
• Resourcefulness & Problem-Solving: Finds creative ways to break down challenges, even when information is incomplete.
• Collaboration & Influence: Works well with diverse teams, contributing insights that shape strategy and drive better decisions.

If you are passionate about transforming customer intelligence data into actionable insights and empowering key account teams with the right strategies to drive customer success, we encourage you to apply for the Commercial Insight Strategist position at Polaris I/O.

Polaris I/O is seeking an Account Manager of the Future to join our team and act as a trusted navigator for customers. This role goes beyond managing relationships or selling; it’s about guiding customers with insight and clarity toward their desired business outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Navigate customer accounts strategically, anticipating the path ahead and identifying opportunities early.
• Lead conversations that connect customer challenges to strategic business value, moving beyond just offering solutions.
• Build long-term partnerships grounded in trust, mutual understanding, and measurable business impact.
• Collaborate across Polaris I/O teams to deliver outcomes aligned with customer goals.
• Leverage insights, data, and empathy to create customer value and loyalty.

Required Qualifications:

• Proven success in B2B account management within consultative or technical sales environments.
• Ability to lead strategic, high-level conversations with executives and decision-makers.
• Skilled at linking technical solutions to measurable business outcomes.
• Exceptional communication, critical thinking, and relationship leadership skills.
• Comfortable with ambiguity, viewing it as an opportunity to create clarity and direction.

Personal Attributes:

• Commercial and strategic mindset, thriving on solving complex business problems.
• Deep listening skills with a customer-centric approach.
• Confident engaging at the C-suite level with clarity and insight.
• Adaptable and resourceful in dynamic environments.
• Leadership with a focus on guiding customers—not just managing them.

If you’re ready to Go to Customer, think differently, and lead with insight, this is your next role.