Head of Data Engineering

Philo: a streaming service for TV and movie lovers

At Philo, we’re a group of technology and product people who set out to build the future of television, marrying the best in modern technology with the most compelling medium ever invented — in short, we’re building the TV experience that we’ve always wanted for ourselves. In practice this means leveraging cloud delivery, modern tech stacks, machine learning, and hand-crafted native app experiences on all of our platforms. We aim to deliver a rock solid experience on the streaming basics, while cooking up next generation multi-screen and multi-user playback experiences.

Data at Philo

Data underpins everything we do at Philo: making informed business decisions; analyzing and improving the quality of our streaming experience; running product experiments to optimize our signup flows and improve user journeys; and making it effortless for our users to find the perfect thing to watch. Philo serves over a billion streams to its users every year, generating a wealth of data that we leverage at all levels of the organization. Philo’s data platform operates at very large scale, processing trillions of events annually in a petabyte-scale data lake and supporting thousands of data workflows and analytical queries that power decision-making across the company.

Philo’s Data Engineering team encompasses both data engineering and analytics engineering, and we’re looking for people who are comfortable working on complex data infrastructure and modeling challenges that support critical business functions across our streaming services. You’ll be working closely with other data scientists, analysts, and engineers to build and deploy solutions directly for our service – this work spans both foundational data platform work like data warehouse architecture, metric governance, and semantic consistency across our entire data stack. In addition, you’ll work with departments across the organization to understand their data needs and deliver high-performance, reliable data systems to help the entire team thrive.

We are passionate about building robust, scalable data infrastructure and providing a high-quality data platform for the entire company, using both cutting-edge technologies and proven engineering practices in close collaboration with every department. To complete our work, we build on modern tools including AWS-native services, dbt, Segment, Snowflake, AWS SageMaker, Spark, Avo, BigEye and more.

Some of the recent projects that data and analytics engineers at Philo have worked on include building new models for key financial data, dbt model design, data warehouse cluster upgrades and maintenance, per-query infra cost optimization, implementation of Apache Iceberg data storage, benchmarking & improving data warehouse performance, and evaluating alternative data warehouse technologies.

The Role

We're seeking a senior technical and foundational leader to own and drive the vision, strategy, and execution of our Data Engineering team, encompassing both the data engineering and analytics engineering  functions at Philo. This is a strategic and high-impact role: you'll set the long-term direction for our entire data platform, lead and grow a team of data and analytics engineers, and roll up your sleeves to architect and build alongside them. The ideal candidate has owned both disciplines before — data infrastructure and analytics engineering — and brings strong opinions on how to structure a high-velocity, high-trust data organization. 

Responsibilities:

• Own the vision and technical strategy for data engineering and analytics engineering at Philo, setting the direction for how data is ingested, modeled, and delivered across the organization
• Own the team’s roadmap, balancing strategic long-term investments with near-term stakeholder needs
• Lead and grow the Data Engineering team, including hiring, career development, performance management, and supporting the team in generally thriving
• Lead the design and implementation of Philo's data platform architecture, including  setting technical standards and best practices for data engineering and analytics engineering work
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand data platform needs and translate business requirements into technical solutions
• Build and maintain stakeholder trust in data and reporting — ensuring that business teams have reliable, well-documented, and well-understood data products
• Design scalable data pipelines and infrastructure; drive technical decisions with a focus on long-term sustainability
• Implement data governance, security, and quality control processes as needed
• Ultimately, deliver on the alchemy of transforming raw, messy application data into trusted business insight through scalable dimensional modeling and a metric layer that faithfully reflects product and customer behavior.

Key Qualifications:

• 10+ years of professional experience spanning data engineering and analytics engineering, ideally with a few years working on high-volume data platforms
• 4+ years of experience managing and leading data teams, with demonstrated experience owning both data engineering and analytics engineering functions at a prior organization
• Deep expertise in modern data stack technologies, particularly AWS data services, Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, Airbyte, Python, and SQL
• Deep expertise in analytics engineering, including dbt model design, dimensional modeling, and delivering trusted, business-facing data products
• Strong people management skills with experience providing coaching, performance feedback, and career development guidance to direct reports.
• Track record of improving stakeholder trust in reporting and data quality across an organization
• Strong track record of designing and implementing data platforms
• Excellent communication skills with technical and non-technical stakeholders, simplifying complex data concepts for various business audiences

Ideal Qualifications:

• Experience in media/streaming industry with understanding of video delivery analytics and metrics
• Demonstrated experience driving organizational alignment around data definitions, metrics, and a single source of truth
• Experience with data governance and compliance requirements
• Background in implementing data quality frameworks

More about Philo

At Philo, we’re a company that puts people first—both our subscribers and our team. We empower our colleagues to do their best work while supporting one another in pursuing shared goals. We value pragmatism, pride in our work, and passion, with transparency and openness as fundamental parts of our culture.

We’re committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility as we grow the Philo team and shape the future of TV. We believe that a diverse range of voices and perspectives enables us to innovate faster and create the best experiences for our subscribers. Philo is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We’re committed to supporting every candidate and employee. If you need an accommodation at any stage of the process, please email [email protected] and we’ll work with you to meet your needs.

Philo offers 70+ top-rated networks streaming live and on-demand, including AMC, BET, CMT, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, Food Network, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, HISTORY, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, MTV, Nickelodeon, OWN, VH1, We TV, and more. It also includes all the groundbreaking originals and blockbuster movies available with AMC+ and access to HBO Max Basic With Ads and discovery+. Our service also includes 100+ free channels and premium add-ons like STARZ and MGM+.

Our extensive library boasts over 85,000 titles, and our unlimited DVR allows users to save their favorite shows and movies for up to a year, skipping ads for a seamless viewing experience. Stream on up to three devices simultaneously, whether on your phone, tablet, laptop, or TV using Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, Samsung TV, Android TV, Vizio TV, or Chromecast.

Philo is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and Cambridge, MA. Our leadership team includes alums from HBO, Tubi, and Meraki, and is backed by NEA and industry partners like Warner Brothers Discovery, Viacom, AMC, and A&E.

Join us at Philo and be part of a team that's shaping the future of TV!

Status: Full-time
Location: San Francisco, CA, Brooklyn, NY, Cambridge, MA, or remote within the U.S.
Compensation: Includes annual salary, company stock options, and health benefits. Salary is determined by experience and location:

• San Francisco, New York City: $240K - $275K
• Boston, DC Metro, Los Angeles, Seattle: $225K - $260K
• Denver, Atlanta, Austin, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Chicago: $215K - $250K
• Texas, Florida: $200K - $235K

We value a diverse and inclusive workplace and we welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, skills, and perspectives. Philo is an equal opportunity employer. We believe that everyone does their best work when they are supported by each other and the company, and we offer a generous set of benefits to make sure the Philo team is happy and healthy. Here is a sampling of the benefits we offer our team:

• Full health, dental and vision coverage for you and your family
• 401(k) plan with employer contributions (we match 100% of deferrals up to 3% of pay and 50% of the next 2% of pay)
• Flexible working hours
• Up to 20 weeks of fully paid parental leave
• Unlimited paid time off for vacation and sick leave
• $2,000 annual vacation bonus (we pay you to take a two week vacation)
• $5,250 annually for professional development and educational assistance
• $1,250 annual home office + TV stipend during first year of employment ($250 annually thereafter)
• $500/month ($6,000/year) bonus for employees who commit to working at least 3 days per week in our offices, plus generous commuter benefits ($315/month towards transit, rideshare, bike rental, or parking at our HQ office in San Francisco)
• Free Gympass subscription — an all-in-one corporate benefit that gives employees the largest selection of gyms, studios, classes, training and wellness apps
• Dog-friendly office
• And much more!

For California Residents: Philo’s CCPA Notice at Collection – Employees, Applicants, Owners, Directors, Officers and Contractors

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.