Ascent Funding (“Ascent”) is an award-winning, rapidly growing FinTech company that is on a mission to revolutionize the way people pay for college.

We aim to fix a broken higher education system by being transparent and offering products that support a greater population of students through our Ascent College Loans (cosigned and non-cosigned student loans for undergraduate and graduate school) and Bootcamp Loans (consumer loans and Income Share Agreements (ISAs) for technical bootcamps and accelerated skills training programs) financing options.  

We believe education is an investment in your future, and we want to empower you, and students of all economic backgrounds and disciplines, to maximize your return on that investment. Ascent offers exclusive benefits (such as 1% cash back, scholarships, a Refer A Friend, a Rewards Program, and more) as well as free resources that set students and families up for financial success. Ascent and its family of companies have been named “Best Places to Work” by the San Diego Business Journal since 2015.

We are looking for candidates that drive meaningful insights from a wide array of data and can share these findings with business stakeholders. The Ascent Senior Data Engineer is responsible for expanding and optimizing our data and data pipeline architecture, as well as optimizing data flow and collection across the organization. This role supports the critical data needs of multiple teams, and systems. They will also be responsible for the delivery of new initiatives extend Ascent’s product offerings.

We hope you:

• Find data thrilling and have the drive to be self-directed, flexible, and responsive to business needs.
• Enjoy leveraging data to tell a story that helps direct team efforts for maximum impact.
• Are comfortable working in a fast-paced, analytics-driven environment with a team that is looking to grow. 

In this role you will:

• Work with stakeholders including Executive, Product, Data and Marketing teams to assist with data-related technical issues and support their data infrastructure needs.
• Assemble large, complex data sets that meet functional / non-functional business requirements.
• Build the infrastructure required for optimal extraction, transformation, and loading of data from a wide variety of data sources using SQL, Python and AWS ‘big data’ technologies.
• Build analytics tools that utilize the data pipeline to provide actionable insights into customer acquisition, operational efficiency, and other key business performance metrics.
• Create data tools for analytics and data scientist team members that assist them in building and optimizing our product into an innovative industry leader.
• Be proactive to identify systems and processes the improve efficiencies and support greater access to meaningful data that empowers key stakeholders throughout the organization.
• Find ways to ensure clean data and reduce risk of fraud.

Desired Skills & Expertise:

• Bachelor’s Degree required in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Informatics, Information Systems, or another quantitative field.
• 5+ years of experience in a data engineering role.
• Enjoy working in cross-functional teams and providing feedback to senior management.
• Exceptional analytic and strategic thinking skills related to working with structured and unstructured data sets.
• Experience and proficiency with…
  
  • Advanced SQL and procedural practices.
  • Building and optimizing data pipelines, architectures, and data sets.
  • Performing root cause analysis on internal/external data, identifying improvement opportunities.
  • Relational databases (MS SQL Server, Postgres, MySQL) and NoSQL databases.
  • AWS cloud services (EC2, EMR, RDS, Redshift) and AWS Data Pipeline.
  • Big data pipeline tools like Spark, Glue and SSIS
  • Sourcing and modeling data from REST APIs.
  • Data visualization systems like Tableau, Looker or Power BI.
  • Object-oriented scripting languages (Python, Scala).
• Development operations in the data engineering space (git, ci/cd pipelines).

• Must be able to think outside of the box, enjoy being challenged to grow your skills, and not be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone.

Bonus points if you have:

• Past consumer finance experience and / or experience in a highly regulated environment.
• MBA or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Informatics, Information Systems or another quantitative field.

Benefits & Perks:

• Annual Bonus
• Company Stock Options
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Annual HSA contribution of $1,500
• Life insurance, disability, and critical illness
• 401(k) with company match
• 12 Paid Holidays including your Birthday off
• Discounted Pet Insurance for our fur babies
• Unlimited free snacks and drinks in the office
• Tuition reimbursement program
• Flexible schedule and work-from-home options
• Home office stipend and technology allowance
• Generous PTO, including Paid Parental Leave
• $2000 Vacation Incentive Bonus every 3 years + $1000 Sabbatical Day
• Company parties, summer BBQs, virtual events
• Community, Parking, Wellness funds, and more

Learn more about our benefits by viewing our 2022 Employee Benefits Guide.