Staff Data Engineer - USA

About Inworld

Inworld is a product-oriented research lab of top AI researchers and engineers, developing best-in-class realtime multimodal models and the only realtime orchestration platform optimized for thousands of queries per second.

We’ve raised more than $125M from Lightspeed, Section 32, Kleiner Perkins, Microsoft’s M12 venture fund, Founders Fund, Meta and Stanford, among others. Our technology has powered experiences from companies such as NVIDIA, Microsoft Xbox, Niantic, Logitech Streamlabs, Wishroll, Little Umbrella and Bible Chat. We’ve also been recognized by CB Insights as one of the 100 most promising AI companies globally and have been named one of LinkedIn's Top 10 Startups in the USA.

About the role

We’re looking for a Staff Data Engineer to own and evolve our analytics and data infrastructure. This is a high-impact, individual contributor role at the intersection of product and engineering where you’ll be responsible not just for building pipelines, but for driving business outcomes from the data.

This is the first time we’re hiring at this level for data engineering, so we need someone who thrives in ambiguity, takes ownership, and can operate independently from day one. You’ll have the opportunity to shape our data architecture and set the technical direction for how we turn data into decisions by identifying what’s working, what’s not, and driving the actions that move the business forward.

What You’ll Do

• Own our analytics platform end-to-end: assess what we have today, identify gaps, and build what’s missing

• Design and build data pipelines focused on customer intelligence to identify opportunities to grow, improve retention, and drive smarter business decisions

• Turn data into action: analyze results, surface insights, and push the organization to act on them

• Partner closely with product, engineering, and ML teams to define what we measure, why it matters, and how we operationalize insights

• Drive technical direction for our data stack and establish best practices as the function grows

What You’ll Bring

• 7-10+ years of experience in Data Engineering

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience)

• Deep hands-on experience with data platforms and tooling, including BigQuery, Google Cloud Dataflow, Dagster, Looker Studio, or equivalent tools

• Strong communicator who can translate data into business decisions and influence cross-functional stakeholders

• Experience designing data architecture and providing technical guidance to others

Candidates must be based in the SF Bay Area or willing to relocate (you will be working on-site in our South Bay office a few days a week).

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $200,000 - $290,000. In addition to base pay, total compensation includes equity and benefits. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location, level, and additional factors, including competencies, experience, and business needs. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future.