Member of Technical Staff - Engineering Lead, Data Platform

San Francisco · London · New York, NY · 8+ years experience · Full-time · Onsite · Posted Sep 30, 2026

At a glance

Reflection is building the trusted data backbone for the world's most capable open-weight AI systems.
The Data Platform team builds and operates core data systems and pipelines powering research, training, and production environments.
This is a front-line technical leader role to build, mentor, and grow the team while staying hands-on.

Build, mentor, and grow a team of ~10 exceptional data platform engineers hiring, coaching, and raising the bar with every person you add.
Guide the technical direction across the platform: ingestion and orchestration patterns for batch and streaming workloads, scalable compute and storage foundations, and reproducible pipelines with versioning, backfills, and isolated execution environments.
Work closely with research, training, and production teams to enable high-velocity experimentation on a unified data layer.
Establish trusted data quality, lineage, and governance signals so teams can make confident production decisions.
Keep cost and performance predictable through guardrails, budgets, and continuous system tuning.
Stay hands-on: design reviews, architecture decisions, and code where it matters most.

8+ years of engineering experience with a strong data engineering foundation — you've shipped and owned production-grade pipelines at large scale (tens of TBs to PBs daily).
A track record as a staff/principal-level individual contributor before moving into leadership — you earn the technical trust of a strong team.
You've managed and grown a team (~5–10), or clearly demonstrated the leadership readiness to build one quickly — while staying technically embedded.
Deep in at least one of: ingestion & orchestration at scale, storage and processing engines (lakehouse formats, query engines), or data quality/lineage/reproducibility systems — with working breadth across the others.
Fluent in the modern data stack; you've built new systems from zero rather than maintained legacy ones.
Thrive in a high-agency, fast-paced environment; bias toward action and impact.
Collaborative, clear communicator, comfortable working across research and infrastructure boundaries.

Top-tier compensation: Salary and equity structured to recognize and retain our talent globally.
Stock options: Everyone who joins and contributes to Reflection's success gets to share in the upside through stock options.
Health & wellness: Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and life, with an annual wellness allowance.
Meals: Lunch and dinner are provided in the office daily.
Life & family: 22 weeks paid parental leave for all new birthing and non-birthing parents, including adoptive and surrogate journeys.
Vacation days: Unlimited paid time off in the U.S. and 30 days in the U.K.
Sponsorship support: We sponsor visas to help exceptional talent join our team and support long-term immigration pathways where applicable.
Team building: We have regular off-sites, happy hours, and team celebrations.

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