Staff Data Engineer

Join Workiva's GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance) Enablement team to build the data foundations that power our product teams. As a Staff Data Engineer, you'll own the systems and processes that make data accessible, reliable, and actionable across GRC engineering-from Snowflake infrastructure and streaming pipelines to the tooling that ties it all together.

This is a heavily hands-on role. You'll design scalable data platforms, establish modeling patterns, and create documentation that makes adoption seamless for engineers across the organization. You'll partner closely with backend engineers on upstream data quality and mentor team members who want to deepen their data skills.

Data platform & pipelines

• Design, build, and operate end-to-end data pipelines that move data from OLTP stores to OLAP (Snowflake), including batch and real-time ingestion.

• Define transformation processes and establish data modeling practices to unlock advanced OLAP feature sets for GRC applications.

• Leverage Kafka (or equivalent) for streaming use cases and integrate with Snowpipe/Snowpipe Streaming where appropriate.

Data modeling & transformation

• Own complex dbt models: design, implement, test, and document transformations that serve application-specific data needs.

• Optimize SQL for performance at scale (multi-join, window functions, CTEs) and enforce consistent modeling standards.

• Build data products and curated interfaces (views, APIs) for downstream services and analytics.

Data quality, reliability & compliance

• Implement data quality frameworks in dbt (custom tests, freshness checks, SLAs) with monitoring and alerting.

• Work within regulated release pipelines using GitOps/CI/CD; author PRs, manage promotions through dev/test/prod, and collaborate with platform/infrastructure teams for gated approvals.

• Apply security and controls (RBAC, audit logging, encryption) aligned with Workiva's information-protection policies.

Technical leadership & enablement

• Establish modeling patterns, coding standards, and documentation so engineers can confidently use and extend our data systems.

• Mentor engineers on SQL, data modeling, dbt best practices, and observability; lead incident resolution and root-cause analysis for data issues.

• Partner with product and backend teams to influence upstream schema design, data contracts, and quality expectations.

Minimum qualifications

• 5+ years in data engineering or analytics engineering, with hands-on ownership of dbt projects and data-model lifecycles.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or a related field-or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred qualifications

• Expert-level SQL for ETL/ELT, automation, and APIs.

• Proven experience building and operating production data pipelines and data models on Snowflake.

• Streaming experience with Kafka (or similar) and familiarity with Snowpipe/Snowpipe Streaming patterns.

• Experience in regulated or highly controlled environments with strict release governance and compliance requirements.

• Familiarity with DLT/Dagster or similar orchestration, and BI tools like Superset (or equivalent).

• Track record of mentoring engineers and driving cross-team technical standards.

• Willingness to travel up to 10% for team and corporate meetings, fostering relationships and representing company interests

• Reliable internet access for any period of time working remotely, as we embrace flexible work arrangements

How You'll Be Rewarded

A discretionary bonus typically paid annually

Restricted Stock Units granted at time of hire

401(k) match and comprehensive employee benefits package

The salary range represents the low and high end of the salary range for this job in the US. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. The actual salary offer will carefully consider a wide range of factors, including your skills, qualifications, experience and other relevant factors.

Why Join Workiva

Workiva is the platform designed to bring confidence, control, and a competitive edge to the world's most complex organizations. Our AI-powered platform unifies finance, risk, and sustainability on a single, secure foundation-ensuring data is trusted, traceable, and ready to act on. With an unbroken path from source to output, leaders gain confidence in their numbers, visibility into current and emerging risks, and the ability to move with speed and precision in a constantly changing world.

At Workiva, you'll bring technology to market that executives, boards, and regulators depend on. The work you do here helps organizations navigate uncertainty, maintain trust, and make decisions that stand up to scrutiny. If you're energized by meaningful challenges, inspired by collaborative teams, and motivated to help organizations turn uncertainty into advantage, we'd love to meet you.

Employment decisions are made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other protected characteristic.

Workiva is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. To request assistance with the application process, please email talentacquisition@workiva.com.

Workiva employees are required to undergo comprehensive security and privacy training tailored to their roles, ensuring adherence to company policies and regulatory standards.

Workiva supports employees in working where they work best - either from an office or remotely from any location within their country of employment.