TRM is on a mission to build a safer financial system for billions of people. We deliver a blockchain intelligence data platform to financial institutions, crypto companies, and governments to fight cryptocurrency fraud and financial crime. We consider our business — and our profit — as a way to move towards our mission sustainably and at scale.
The Data Platform team sits at the core of TRM's products, working with data scientists, engineers, and product managers to build scalable and reliable data infrastructure. As a Senior or Staff Engineer, you will focus on data incrementalization — the process of efficiently processing, updating, and synchronizing massive datasets as new information becomes available. This approach ensures that TRM's blockchain intelligence remains timely, accurate, and actionable at petabyte-scale. You will design and build internal tools that empower Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers to transform raw blockchain data into real-time blockchain intelligence, driving innovation and impact across TRM's product offerings.
The impact you’ll have here:
- Design and build our Cloud Data Warehouse with a focus on incremental updates to improve cost efficiency and scalability.
- Research innovative methods to incrementally optimize data processing, storage, and retrieval to support efficient data analytics and insights.
- Develop and maintain ETL pipelines that transform and incrementally process petabytes of structured and unstructured data to enable data-driven decision-making.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to design and implement new data models and tools focused on accelerating innovation through incremental updates.
- Continuously monitor and optimize the Data Platform's performance, focusing on enhancing cost efficiency, scalability, and reliability.
What we’re looking for:
- Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science or a related field.
- 5+ years of experience in building distributed system architecture, with a particular focus on incremental updates from inception to production.
- Strong programming skills in Python and SQL.
- Deep technical expertise in advanced data structures and algorithms for incremental updating of data stores (e.g., Graphs, Trees, Hash Maps).
- Comprehensive knowledge across all facets of data engineering, including:
- Implementing and managing incremental updates in data stores like BigQuery, Snowflake, RedShift, Athena, Hive, and Postgres.
- Orchestrating data pipelines and workflows focused on incremental processing using tools such as Airflow, DBT, Luigi, Azkaban, and Storm.
- Developing and optimizing data processing technologies and streaming workflows for incremental updates (e.g., Spark, Kafka, Flink).
- Deploying and monitoring scalable, incremental update systems in public cloud environments (e.g., Docker, Terraform, Kubernetes, Datadog).
- Expertise in loading, querying, and transforming large datasets with a focus on efficiency and incremental growth.
About the Team:
- The Data Platform team is the funnel between all of TRM's data world and product world. We care about all layers of stack including petabyte of data stores, pipelines, and processes.
- We have quite a big scope as a the team with new and exciting projects every quarter. As a result, we collaborate across the board with most teams at TRM.
- We believe in async communication and are also not afraid to jump on a quick huddle if that helps to move things faster. We are both scrappy when the situation demands and also process-oriented when we need to achieve our OKRs.
- We are always looking for people who can elevate the quality our tech and our execution. If you enjoy a remote-first and async friendly environment to achieve efficacy and efficiency at petabyte scale, our team could be a great pick for you!
- Team members are based in the US across almost all timezones! Our on-call tends to be in EST/PST shift, whatever suits you the best.
- We do try to reserve some overlap in the day for meetings. Our north star - no IC spends more than 3-4 hours/week in meetings.
Learn about TRM Speed in this position:
- Build scalable engines to optimize routine scaling and maintenance tasks like create self-serve automation for creating new pgbouncer, scaling disks, scaling/updating of clusters, etc.
- Enable tasks to be faster next time and reducing dependency on a single person.
- Identify ways to compress timelines using 80/20 principle. For instance, what does it take to be operational in a new environment? Identify the must have and nice to haves that are need to deploy our stack to be fully operation. Focus on must haves first to get us operational and then use future milestones to harden for customer readiness. We think in terms of weeks and not months.
- Identify first version, a.k.a., "skateboards" for projects. For instance, build an observability dashboard within a week. Gather feedback from stakeholders after to identify more needs or bells and whistles to add to the dashboard.
About TRM's Engineering Levels:
Engineer: Responsible for helping to define project milestones and executing small decision decisions independently with the appropriate tradeoffs between simplicity, readability, and performance. Provides mentorship to junior engineers, and enhances operational excellence through tech debt reduction and knowledge sharing.
Senior Engineer: Successfully designs and documents system improvements and features for an OKR/project from the ground up. Consistently delivers efficient and reusable systems, optimizes team throughput with appropriate tradeoffs, mentors team members, and enhances cross-team collaboration through documentation and knowledge sharing.
Staff Engineer: Drives scoping and execution of one or more OKRs/projects that impact multiple teams. Partners with stakeholders to set the team vision and technical roadmaps for one or more products. Is a role model and mentor to the entire engineering organization. Ensures system health and quality with operational reviews, testing strategies, and monitoring rigor.
The following represents the expected range of compensation for this role:
- The estimated base salary range for this role is $240,000 - $270,000.
- Additionally, this role may be eligible to participate in TRM’s equity plan.
Leadership Principles
Our Leadership Principles are foundational element of our strategy, guiding how we make decisions, how we treat each other, and how we behave day-to-day.
- Impact-Oriented Trailblazer: We put customers first, driving for speed, focus, and adaptability.
- Master Craftsperson: We prioritize speed, high standards, and distributed ownership.
- Inspiring Colleague: We value humility, candor, and a one-team mindset.
Build a Career
Joining TRM means being part of a mission-driven team comprised of industry leaders. At TRM, you'll experience:
- Purpose and Mission: Have a real-world impact, from disrupting terrorist networks to returning stolen funds.
- Inspiring Colleagues: Collaborate with industry leaders and learn something new daily.
- Personal Growth: We're not just using technology; we're inventing it and taking category-defining products to market.
Work Environment
- Remote First: Our HQ is online. Tools like Zoom and Slack ensure seamless collaboration, but we also value in-person interactions, organizing regular meetups and offsites for team bonding. Clear communication is key in our decentralized setup. With tools like Slack, Loom, and voice notes, we document meetings and decisions, promoting transparency and efficiency.
- Ownership & TRM Speed: Small teams drive big goals at TRM. Every team member has significant ownership and responsibility, fostering an environment of initiative and direct impact. While there's no strict clocking in or out, we expect team members to balance personal schedules and team needs. We move “surprisingly fast” while maintaining a high bar in service of our customers and mission. This can feel both intense and rewarding. Our unique approach to projects emphasizes quick wins, rapid iterations, and constant feedback.
- Diversity and Inclusion: Diversity at TRM encompasses backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Every day is an opportunity to learn from a colleague, whether they're a law enforcement expert or a tech pioneer.
- Annual Company Offsite: Once a year, TRMers come together from around the world to attend a 1-week mandatory company offsite. This is designed to foster in-person relationships, creativity, and strategic alignment. Employee attendance is required of all TRMers.
Join Us
We're looking for team members who love building from the ground up and want to work hard in a fast-paced and ambitious environment. We are remote-first, with exceptionally talented team members located around the world. If you like solving tough problems quickly and seeing your work improve the lives of billions of people, we want you at TRM.
We encourage you to reach out even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. Don't worry about picking exactly the right job; we can always explore other options after starting the conversation. Your passion and interests will set you apart, especially if your background or career is unconventional.
To all recruitment agencies: TRM Labs does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to TRM Labs employees. TRM Labs is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes and will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company that does not have a signed agreement with the Company.
Top Skills
What We Do
TRM Labs is a blockchain intelligence company that helps financial institutions, crypto businesses and government agencies detect and investigate crypto-related financial crime and fraud. Every day, we tackle challenges in data engineering, data science, and threat intelligence to advance our mission to build a safer financial system for billions of people.
We have raised over $79M from JPMorgan Chase, Visa, Citi, PayPal, Block, Initialized Capital, Tiger Global, Bessemer, and Y Combinator.
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