Staff Data Engineer

I'm Scott Roberts https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottrobertsprofile/, Senior Manager, Engineering at Teamworks. I lead the Data Platform team, and we're building the foundation that brings together athlete performance data, product telemetry, and the unique datasets we've accumulated through several acquisitions in the sports tech space. Right now, a lot of that data lives in disparate systems and original tech stacks, and much of it isn't yet defined or organized well enough for us to fully leverage it for analytics, ML, and the AI features we're building. My team is changing that by building a modern lakehouse that becomes the backbone of our cross-product analytics, ML, and AI, with just enough structure and ownership to move us up a level in data maturity.

This is where you come in. I'm looking for a Staff Data Engineer who can co-define the technical direction of this platform, establish the standards other engineers build on, and make architectural decisions that will matter for years. You will be strategic and hands-on, as comfortable shaping the roadmap and bringing other leaders and teams along as you are writing the Python and building the pipelines. The work is highly visible, organizationally backed, and tied directly to capabilities that show up on the field for athletes and coaches.

THE ROLE

• Define the technical architecture and platform standards for our lakehouse on AWS: distributed cloud architecture, schema conventions, multi-tenant isolation, and integration design
• Lead design and delivery of the production pipelines that consolidate performance and product data, and own data modeling for complex entities (time-series, hierarchical, multi-source) so the models serve products, analytics, and ML
• Introduce just enough data governance, ownership, and stewardship to raise our data maturity, and lay the catalog and semantic-layer foundation that analytics, ML, and AI agents can reason over
• Author and maintain the Data Platform playbook (reusable patterns, ADRs, runbooks, Terraform modules) with data quality and reliability built in, so product teams can self-serve new datasets and integrations
• Lead delivery end to end, from requirements and planning through coordinating workstreams and translating status to senior leadership and non-technical partners
• Mentor engineers across levels, raise the bar through design review and on-call ownership, and be the engineering voice shaping the platform roadmap

WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR

WHAT YOU MUST BRING

• 10+ years of data engineering or related experience, with strong Python for pipelines, transformations, and platform tooling
• Deep expertise designing, operating, and setting direction for lakehouse platforms (Delta Lake, Iceberg, or Hudi) and modern processing engines (Spark, Databricks, Trino, or Snowflake) at production scale, with the judgment to make the hard tradeoffs and troubleshoot them
• Expert AWS and distributed cloud architecture experience (S3, IAM, Glue, EMR/Lambda, networking), fluent writing Terraform and the best practices for implementing those designs
• Deep data modeling and schema design for complex entities (time-series, hierarchical, multi-source) in multi-tenant environments, across multiple systems you've built (warehouses, lakehouses, relational), plus proven integration standards across teams (event-driven, API, batch)
• Track record of standing up or significantly maturing a data platform from ambiguous goals, including the organizational work of aligning leaders and teams and communicating decisions to senior and non-technical stakeholders through RFCs and ADRs
• Familiarity with how data governance, ownership, and stewardship programs are introduced, and the judgment to apply just enough to raise data maturity without over-engineering it

EVEN BETTER IF

• You have sports industry experience and have used a lakehouse to ingest multi-source performance data (Catapult, Vald, Kinexon) and model it for products, analytics, and ML
• You have integrated legacy or acquired products into a lakehouse architecture
• You bring software engineering depth beyond data engineering, in platform-as-a-product environments where internal teams are the customers
• You're AI-forward with tools like Claude or Cursor, and have a point of view on the data foundation (catalog, semantic layer) that lets AI agents reason over our data

WHY THIS ROLE

Teamworks has grown through acquisition into one of the most interesting data positions in organized sports. The platform you help define ties our data together across products, gives it the structure to fuel analytics, ML, and AI agents, and puts us in a position no one else in the industry has. If you want to set technical direction with real organizational backing and see your architectural decisions translate directly to outcomes on the field, this is that role.

ABOUT TEAMWORKS

We're the Operating System for Sports™, powering 6,500+ organizations worldwide, from collegiate programs to every major pro league. Founded in 2006, we've evolved from a messaging tool for college football into the leading sports tech platform, with 500+ global teammates building the future of sports tech. Our solutions span Personnel, Coaching, Performance, Operations, and Intelligence - helping teams recruit smarter, train better, stay compliant, and win.

Teamworks is an equal opportunity employer - if you live our core values every day and are honest, hardworking, humble, committed, innovative, and an all-around exceptional person, you'll thrive at Teamworks. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and take affirmative action to not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected characteristics. This policy applies to all employment practices within our organization, including but not limited to recruiting, hiring, promotion, termination, compensation, benefits, and training. Teamworks is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities who need assistance during the hiring process. To request a reasonable accommodation, please email talent@teamworks.com.

To all recruitment agencies: Teamworks does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Teamworks employees or any other organization location. Teamworks is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.