# Staff Software Engineer, Data Platform

**Company:** [Plenful](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/plenful)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Data Engineering
**Experience:** 12+ years
**Skills:** Python, Postgres, AWS, Data Modeling, Schema Design, Query Optimization, Observability, Data Integrity, Backend Systems, Incident Response
**Posted:** 2026-03-16

> Own and evolve the core data platform powering Plenful’s AI automation engine. Design data models, contracts, and infrastructure for a regulated healthcare domain with 12+ years of backend/data experience.

## Job Description

## What you’ll do
- Own the design and evolution of the core data model — domain entities, actions, and the audit trail that governs every automated decision
- Build the data layer that AI agents read from and write to: expressive enough that models can reason over operational context, governed enough for healthcare compliance
- Define how domain knowledge is structured, versioned, and queried — laying the groundwork for increasingly rich context, serving as the platform matures
- Establish data contracts and APIs that give feature teams clean, stable interfaces to build against
- Drive platform reliability as we double our customer base and traffic without degrading performance
- Set technical direction for the data platform in partnership with the product, and feature team leads

## What we’re looking for

### Must have
- 12+ years of professional software engineering experience building backend or data infrastructure in production
- Deep expertise in relational databases: schema design, query performance, data modeling tradeoffs
- Track record designing and evolving data models in complex, growing systems
- Experience operating production systems at scale, including incident response and reliability work
- Hands-on coding ability in backend systems (Python-heavy environment, but language agnostic)
- Strong reliability instincts: observability, testing, data integrity
- Ability to make good decisions with incomplete information — e.g., designing data models when the domain is still being codified, and product requirements are evolving alongside AI capabilities

### Nice to have
- Experience in healthcare, fintech, or other compliance-heavy infrastructure environments
- Background at high-throughput infrastructure companies (Stripe, Brex, Notion, or similar)
- Practical understanding of applied AI systems — how models consume structured data, not pure ML research
- Comfort in customer-facing technical discussions

## Compensation & Benefits
- Unlimited PTO
- Fully covered health insurance (medical, dental, and vision)
- Meal stipend
- Health & wellness stipend
- 401(k) matching
- Stock options

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