JobsSpotHero

Senior Data Engineer I

SpotHero · Chicago, IL · Engineering

Posted Sep 18, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Sep 20, 2026

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Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

Behavioral

Tell me about a time a data pipeline failed in production and you had to figure out why. What broke and how did you find it?

debugging discipline and comfort operating and maintaining infrastructure long-term

Describe a time you had to explain a technical tradeoff to someone non-technical, like a business analyst or marketing partner, who needed a data solution.

ability to communicate across technical and business audiences, which the posting explicitly calls out

Tell me about a time you had to performance-tune a system that wasn't scaling, whether that was a query, a pipeline, or a service. What did you change and how did you know it worked?

concrete experience with performance engineering rather than just naming tools

Tell me about a time you inherited or worked with a data platform tool you hadn't used before, like Trino, Airbyte, or a message queue. How did you get up to speed and start contributing?

adaptability across the broad tool surface this role touches

Technical

Walk me through a data pipeline you built from scratch, from the raw source all the way to something a stakeholder used. What did the architecture look like and why did you choose it?

end-to-end ownership and ability to make sound design tradeoffs for pipelines

We run Airflow, Python, dbt, and Spark for ETL, with Redshift as the warehouse and S3 as the lake queried through Trino. If I gave you a new nightly batch job that needs to land data into that stack, how would you decide where each step should run?

real familiarity with this specific stack and judgment about workload placement

How would you use Terraform to provision a new piece of infrastructure for a data service, say a Kafka Connect cluster or a new Redshift schema, and what would you want to make sure is captured in version control versus done manually?

depth of infrastructure-as-code experience beyond just running terraform apply

How do you decide what should be containerized with Docker versus run some other way, and what has your experience been deploying and managing things in Kubernetes or a similar orchestrator?

practical depth with containerization and orchestration, not just resume keywords

What's your approach to setting up CI for a data pipeline repo, things like tests, git workflow, and how you glue components together with shell scripts or Makefiles?

engineering rigor and whether they treat pipelines as real software with proper testing

How have you used AI tools like Claude or Codex in your day-to-day engineering work, and where do you still not trust them?

genuine, calibrated experience with modern AI tooling rather than a rehearsed answer

Situational

Say a marketing analyst comes to you needing self-service access to a new data source so they can build their own pipelines without waiting on your team. How would you design that so it's actually safe and scalable for them to use on their own?

experience building reusable frameworks and tools rather than one-off solutions

Suppose a stream of events coming through Kafka starts arriving late or out of order and it's breaking downstream aggregations. How would you approach diagnosing and fixing that?

hands-on knowledge of streaming architecture pitfalls, not just theoretical Kafka knowledge

If two teams, say Data Science and Marketing, wanted conflicting things from the same data platform feature, how would you go about resolving that?

ability to balance competing stakeholder needs while keeping the platform coherent

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The full job description

As published by SpotHero.

<h3><strong>Who we are:&nbsp;</strong></h3> <p>At SpotHero, we work as a team to empower people to get everywhere, easier! We’re rapidly growing with the mission of bringing the parking industry into the future through technology. Drivers across the nation use the SpotHero mobile app and website to reserve convenient, affordable parking in advance, on-the-go or through their connected cars, and parking companies rely on us to help them reach new customers while optimizing their business. We connect the dots with cutting-edge technology, delivering value to both sides of this exciting, evolving marketplace. We’ve been quite busy, take a peek at some of our recent&nbsp;<a href="https://spothero.com/press/">announcements</a>.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><strong>Senior Data Engineer at SpotHero:</strong></h3> <p>SpotHero is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to join the Data Engineering squad. This squad interacts with data consumers such as Data Science, Marketing, Engineering, and Business Analysts to provide data platform solutions that meet their day-to-day needs and long term vision.</p> <p>As a Senior Data Engineer, you’ll focus heavily on backend application development with a focus on building reusable infrastructure services for our stakeholders to enable them to model, store, access, process, and analyze SpotHero’s data. You’ll also design, instantiate, observe and maintain infrastructure services, both AWS-managed and open source solutions. As a Senior Data Engineer, you’ll influence the technology choices and patterns established for data-heavy workloads at SpotHero.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><strong>What will you do:</strong></h3> <ul data-spread="false"> <li>Work with our Analytics, Data Science, Marketing and other squads to understand their data storage and processing needs.</li> <li>Be a hands-on contributor to the design and implementation of our data platform solutions from the infrastructure layer up to the API.</li> <li>Build robust pipelines that make sure data is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there in a manner that scales.</li> <li>Build frameworks and tools to help others design and build their own data pipelines in a self-service manner.</li> <li>Performance testing and engineering to ensure that our systems always scale to meet our needs.</li> <li>Be a key member of the team focused on hands-on contribution to the implementation and operation of our data platform.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><strong>What you bring: </strong></h3> <ul> <li>We care about your abilities, not how you gained them. You might demonstrate the capabilities below through any combination of relevant professional experience, experience in a research setting, formal education, self-guided learning, open source contributions, or public speaking / writing / teaching experience.</li> <li>You are able to design and implement high-quality software in Python.</li> <li>Experience using SQL to read and manage data.</li> <li>Experience with Airflow, Luigi, Prefect, or other ETL scheduling tools.</li> <li>You have experience provisioning and managing infrastructure with infrastructure-as-code tools (we use Terraform, but experience with similar tools like CloudFormation, Pulumi, or SaltStack is totally fine!)</li> <li>Hands-on experience using multiple data platforms and tools (e.g. Airflow, Hive, Kafka, Postgres, Redshift, S3, Spark, Trino, Airbyte), and experience deploying, monitoring, and maintaining at least one of them</li> <li>Experience designing and implementing software (pipelines, services and client libraries) that is run in Docker containers, automatically tested on a continuous integration (CI) system, and versioned in git. You have experience writing shell scripts, Makefiles, or other configuration to glue together these components.</li> <li>Ability to deploy containerized software in Kubernetes, or sufficient experience in similar technologies like Apache Mesos or Amazon ECS.</li> <li>Demonstrated experience designing and supporting technology intended to be used by other stakeholders.</li> <li>Strong ability to communicate on both business and technology subjects.<br><br></li> </ul> <h3><strong>Nice to Haves:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Message driven or streaming architectures, such as those with Kafka, Spark, Flink.</li> <li>Postgres, MySQL, or other RDBMS experience.</li> <li>Redshift, Presto, or other MPP database experience.</li> <li>Experience with at least one JVM language (we use Kotlin, but Java or Scala experience works).</li> <li>Experience with cloud data pipeline services like dbt Cloud, Airbyte, or Hightouch.</li> <li>Experience using the latest AI tooling (Claude, Codex, etc.)<br><br></li> </ul> <h3><strong>Technology we use:</strong></h3> <ul> <li><em>Our Data Stack is</em>: Our Monolith Database is Postgres and Redis for caching. We also use Redshift as our data warehouse and S3 as our data lake. The data lake is queried using Trino. We use Apache Airflow, Python, dbt, and Apache Spark for ETL. For streaming data, we use Apache Kafka managed by a vendor and use Kafka Connect, Kafka Streams, and Spark Streaming for stream processing. All machine learning work is done in Python, using the PyData ecosystem. Our analysts use Looker for internal-facing business intelligence reports, and Amazon Quicksight for external-facing data visualizations.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><strong>Seeking Candidates in:&nbsp;</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Chicago, Illinois&nbsp;</li> </ul> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3><strong>What we are offering:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Career game changer – A truly unique experience to work for a fast-growing company in a role with unlimited growth potential.</li> <li>Excellent benefits <ul> <li>We cover a generous portion of Medical Premiums, 50% of Dental and Vision Premiums, company-sponsored Life Insurance, STD, and AD&amp;D coverage, a 401(k) with match and immediate vesting, and comprehensive leave policies to meet your needs in creating space for life.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Flexible PTO policy and outstanding work/life balance – We value and support each individual team member.</li> <li>UberEats weekly lunch stipend for in-office days&nbsp;</li> <li>Udemy License and Personal Learning Budget – We support the professional and personal growth of our people by providing everyone with learning resources and development opportunities.&nbsp;</li> <li>Annual parking stipend – Duh. We help people park!</li> <li>The opportunity to collaborate with fun, innovative, and passionate people in a casual yet highly productive atmosphere.</li> <li>Our commitment to allyship has been a central driver of how we Respect Fellow Drivers. You’ll have the opportunity to be part of Employee Resource Groups, access allyship learning resources, and actively contribute to our ongoing effort of making SpotHero inclusive for all.</li> <li>Employee programs to grow and support our people such as Discovery Days for Product and Engineering, Gearing up for Aspiring Leaders, and Mentorship Program.&nbsp;</li> <li>Wellness program – a workplace that actively supports your physical and mental wellbeing through ongoing events, initiatives, resources, and thoughtful perks and benefits.&nbsp;</li> <li>A workplace recognized as&nbsp;<a href="https://1871.com/1871-news-and-content/1871-momentum-awards-winners-2023/">CityLights award winner&nbsp;</a>by 1871,&nbsp;<a href="https://builtin.com/awards/chicago/2026/best-midsize-places-to-work#spothero">2026 Best Places To Work&nbsp;</a>by BuiltIn,&nbsp;<a href="https://mostlovedworkplace.com/companies/spothero/">Most Loved Workplace Certified</a>&nbsp;by the Best Practice Institute, and recipient of multiple Comparably awards, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.comparably.com/companies/spothero">Best Company Culture, Best Company for Women, and Best Company for Diversity.</a></li> </ul> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3><strong>Compensation in Illinois</strong>:</h3> <ul> <li>Depending on your skillset and experience, you can expect your base salary to be between $136,000 - $153,000 as well as a discretionary bonus, and leading total rewards package.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>At SpotHero, we Respect Fellow Drivers by providing an inclusive interview experience for everyone, including people with disabilities. We are happy to provide reasonable accommodations to candidates in need of individualized support during the hiring process. Please let our team know of your need when you apply or as you begin interviewing with our team.</p> <p>SpotHero is an equal opportunity employer. We know that a diverse workforce is the strongest workforce, and are committed to building and supporting an inclusive environment for all.Additionally, because we want to Remember to Signal, if you choose to provide us personal information in connection with a job application, please review our&nbsp;<a href="https://spothero.com/legal/applicant-privacy-notice" target="_blank">Applicant Privacy Notice&nbsp;</a>which provides details about what information we collect and process about you in order to consider your candidacy.</p> <p>PLEASE NOTE: This position is ineligible for visa sponsorship. To be considered for this role, you must be legally authorized to work in the US and not require sponsorship for employment now or in the future.</p>

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