WHO YOU'LL WORK WITH
You will report to the Senior Engineering and will be the technical leader for one of our data product squads. You will partner closely with Product Managers, Architects, BI Experience leads, and other engineering leads across Nike to define the strategy and roadmap for our consumption and ontology layers. You will mentor SWE I and SWE II engineers, raise the bar on engineering practices, and help our team reduce KLO/TCO while accelerating delivery.
WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR
We are looking for senior engineers who lead by example — engineers who write excellent code, drive crisp design discussions, and grow the people around them.
A minimum of 7–10 years of backend and/or data engineering experience.
Deep expertise in at least one of Java, Python, or Scala, and strong fluency in SQL and data modeling.
Proven experience designing distributed systems and data products — microservices, REST/GraphQL APIs, event-driven architectures, batch and streaming pipelines.
Hands-on experience with Databricks, Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog (or equivalent), and orchestration tools such as Airflow.
Strong cloud experience (AWS, GCP, or Azure) including networking, IAM, secrets, and cost-aware architecture.
Demonstrated ability to lead technical design reviews, define APIs and data contracts, and drive consensus across teams.
Track record of mentoring engineers — code reviews, design coaching, career growth conversations.
Experience with observability and SRE practices: metrics, tracing, alerting, error budgets, on-call leadership.
Comfortable with TDD, modern CI/CD, and the productive use of AI engineering tools (GitHub Copilot, etc.).
Strong written and verbal communication — able to influence both engineers and senior business stakeholders.
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field — or equivalent experience.
Preferred: experience with data governance, RLS/ABAC, ontology/semantic layers, dbt, agentic/LLM-powered analytics layers, or large-scale BI platforms.
WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON
As a Lead Software Engineer in Marketplace Data Engineering, you will own the technical direction of a data product squad serving Nike Direct, Wholesale Demand, Inventory, 3PP Demand, Customer Dimensional data, WFM, Clickstream, Member, or Orderbook.
You will lead the design of consumption layers, APIs, and pipelines that BI Experience teams build on — establishing patterns, contracts, and quality bars.
You will drive aggressive simplification and unification of our data products landscape, reducing KLO/TCO while improving consistency.
You will co-create agentic and ontology-driven consumption experiences with BI Experience teams, embedding business context and metric consistency directly into our code and systems.
You will own production reliability, scalability, and security for your squad's services — leading incident response, capacity planning, and the operational quality of what you ship.
You will mentor and grow the SWE I and SWE II engineers on the squad, raising the technical bar through reviews, pairing, and design coaching.
You will partner with the Platform team to adopt and contribute back recommended toolkits, blueprints, and patterns.
You will represent the team in cross-org architecture forums and influence the broader Nike data architecture.
Skills Required
- 7-10 years of backend and/or data engineering experience
- Deep expertise in at least one of Java, Python, or Scala
- Strong fluency in SQL and data modeling
- Proven experience designing distributed systems and data products (microservices, REST/GraphQL APIs, event-driven architectures, batch and streaming pipelines)
- Hands-on experience with Databricks, Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog (or equivalent)
- Experience with orchestration tools such as Airflow
- Strong cloud experience (AWS, GCP, or Azure) including networking, IAM, secrets, and cost-aware architecture
- Demonstrated ability to lead technical design reviews, define APIs and data contracts, and drive cross-team consensus
- Track record of mentoring engineers (code reviews, design coaching, career growth conversations)
- Experience with observability and SRE practices: metrics, tracing, alerting, error budgets, on-call leadership
- Comfortable with TDD and modern CI/CD practices and productive use of AI engineering tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot)
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field, or equivalent experience
- Experience with data governance, RLS/ABAC, ontology/semantic layers, dbt, agentic/LLM-powered analytics layers, or large-scale BI platforms
Nike Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Nike and has not been reviewed or approved by Nike.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) with a company match is complemented by options such as a Mega Backdoor Roth and deferred compensation for eligible earners. Financial coaching and structured savings programs support long-term financial security.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — An Employee Stock Purchase Plan with a stock discount sits alongside broad-based equity vehicles like RSUs and non-qualified stock options. These avenues expand wealth-building opportunities beyond base pay.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave includes maternity and paternity time, recently expanded in the U.S. to 16 weeks and extended to part-time retail teammates. Additional supports include childcare assistance at select locations and family-building benefits such as fertility, surrogacy, and adoption.
Nike Insights
What We Do
At NIKE, Inc., we innovate to serve athletes*. Every teammate - from coder to creator - plays a role in making these athletes’ dreams real. Our tech, data, and digital teams push limits every day, building the future of sport and the tools that drive it. Here, curiosity is fuel. Innovation is the game plan. Different perspectives keep us on the offense. You’ll solve challenges worth tackling, grow fast and belong to a team that backs you to do the right thing. Bring your drive. Bring your bold. Let’s move the world, together. Take your first step at nike.com/careers * If you have a body, you’re an athlete.
Why Work With Us
At NIKE, Inc., your dedication fuels the future of sport. There is a sense of pride that comes from representing an iconic brand and shaping its future. Here, we treat every day as a new opportunity to push boundaries, ask tough questions and share whole-hearted convictions. We are a team – united by the belief that anything is possible.
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