Sr. Data Engineer

At Lakeshore, we create innovative learning materials and world-class guest experiences for teachers, parents and children. Since 1954, we’ve grown into a global community—with a thriving e-commerce business, multiple catalogs, 60 retail stores, a peerless national sales force, plus international offices that support our preeminent supply chain division. But today we’re working better, smarter and faster than ever—and setting our sights even higher. We’re building an infrastructure designed for scalability, embracing data-driven decision-making and using technology to improve efficiency and ensure the best tools for the best work. Most importantly, we continue to invest in a diverse team of inquisitive top talent who fuel each other’s passions and curiosity, take risks, try new things, and believe that every new day brings opportunities for growth.

We are currently seeking a Sr. Data Engineer to join our team. In this role, you will enable and enhance data insights for internal stakeholders, with significant overlap and collaboration across teams. You will also implement data quality, observability and lineage frameworks—creating monitoring, alerting and automated remediation for pipeline failures. The position also involves data cleanup, requirements gathering, data modeling and transformation, report and dashboard creation, and data mining and analytics on complex datasets. Applicants should have a solid grounding in data security, privacy and governance. The ideal candidate brings 5+ years of hands-on data engineering experience, including ownership of mission-critical pipelines in production.

A day on the job looks like this:

• Design, build and own production data pipelines with tools such as Apache Airflow, Matillion and SSIS, ensuring robust orchestration, auto scaling and fault tolerance
• Integrate data across heterogeneous systems (ERP, CRM, e-commerce, IoT and third-party APIs) using REST/GraphQL, Kafka, CDC tools, SFTP and event-streaming patterns
• Develop and evolve our data foundation (Redshift, SQL Server) architectures for both batch and real-time use cases
• Collaborate with Analytics, BI and Data Science teams to deliver reusable semantic models powering Qlik, Power BI and Excel
• Champion engineering excellence: CI/CD for data code, infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/CDK), Git-based workflows and peer code reviews
• Perform root-cause analysis and optimization of SQL, Python and integration workflows
• Partner closely with platform, security and DevOps teams to align on best practices for governance, cost control and compliance
• Ensure reliability and performance of data pipelines by monitoring orchestration workflows and conducting root cause analysis of failures and performance issues. This includes proactively identifying bottlenecks and implementing alerts and recovery strategies to minimize data disruptions 

Got the skills and experience? Here’s what we’re looking for:

• 5+ years of hands-on data engineering experience, including ownership of mission-critical pipelines in production
• Experience designing dimensional and domain-driven data models to support BI and self-service analytics
• Deep expertise with SQL (T-SQL, Redshift SQL) and performance tuning for large-scale analytics workloads
• Hands-on experience with Git for version control and GitHub Actions for CI/CD automation
• Demonstrated ability to lead projects, influence cross-functional stakeholders and elevate engineering standards through partnership and collaboration
• Proven mastery of modern ETL/ELT and orchestration frameworks (Airflow, AWS Glue, Matillion and SSIS) and at least one cloud platform (AWS strongly preferred)
• Strong understanding of integration patterns—batch, streaming, CDC—and technologies such as Kafka, Kinesis, Debezium or Azure Event Hubs
• Proficiency in Python (Pandas, PySpark) for data transformation and automation; familiarity with Scala or Java is a plus
• Solid grounding in data security, privacy and governance (encryption, IAM, RBAC, PII handling and  GDPR/CCPA awareness)

And here’s our end of the bargain!

At Lakeshore, we pay local market wages for employees that reside within Los Angeles and Orange Counties. For employees residing outside of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, pay is based on national market.

For this position, new employees joining Lakeshore are typically brought into the organization at a salary rate between $102,500 - $143,500 depending on relevant experience & skillset.

This range is indicative of projected hiring range. The annual base compensation will take into account each candidate's relevant experience, location, and skillset.

• Bonus eligible
• Paid leave for new parents to support work/life balance and family bonding
• Excellent medical/dental and vision coverage—EPO, PPO and HSA
• 401(k) retirement plan with company contribution (because you will retire someday)
• Flexible benefits—choose what you like, ignore the rest
• On-site preschool for our employees’ children
• On-site employee gym for all levels/fitness needs
• Generous employee discount
• Casual dress…and we really mean it

At Lakeshore, we know our diversity makes us stronger, and when everyone feels included and valued, we all win. We strive to embrace our differences and create an intentionally diverse and inclusive community that is representative of the teachers, families and children we serve.

We know we couldn’t do the extraordinary things we’re doing without the people on our team. Thanks to the passion and enthusiasm of this spectacular group, Lakeshore is more than a great place to work—it’s a great experience to be part of. Day in and day out, we give everything we’ve got to create products that instill a sense of wonder and foster a true love of learning. To help maintain this high bar for success, we’re constantly on the lookout for people to join us. So if you’re a down-to-earth professional who shares our desire for making a difference, we’d love to hear from you. 
 
To learn more about Lakeshore, visit www.lakeshorelearning.com/careers 
 
Equal Employment Opportunity Policy
People are selected to become members of the Lakeshore family based on skill, merit and mind-boggling talent—not based on race, color, creed, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity, marital status, domestic partnership status, military status, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, alienage, AIDS or AIDS-related complex status, genetic information, predisposition or carrier status, status as a victim of domestic violence, physical or mental disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. If things aren’t equal, we all lose.

To learn about how we collect and use Applicant information, please visit our Employee/Applicant Privacy Policy. INDRLL1