Senior Data Engineer

Above Lending is a next-generation financial services company. We provide simple and transparent products aimed at helping our clients achieve their personal finance goals. With competitive rates and personalized support, our mission is to simplify the lending process and help borrowers attain financial well-being. We are committed to making credit more affordable and accessible.We're looking for a Senior Data Engineer who operates like an owner and thinks like a Systems Engineer.This is a deeply hands-on role. You'll spend the majority of your time writing SQL, building pipelines, and working directly with raw data. Beyond pure engineering, we expect some experience in database upkeep and maintenance, as well as the ability to analyze data - spotting patterns, questioning results, and understanding what the numbers actually mean. You'll take ambiguous problems, break them down, and deliver reliable, scalable solutions without step-by-step guidance.Strong candidates will be comfortable with messy source data, incomplete documentation, and figuring things out. If you need heavy direction or clean inputs to do your best work, this role likely isn't the right fit.This is a hybrid role based in Chicago, IL. What You'll DoBuild and own end-to-end data pipelines (ingestion → staging → marts) using Snowflake, Airflow, Fivetran, and DBT.Work directly with raw data. Identify issues and implement fixes in base and staging layers before they propagate downstreamDesign data models that are simple, scalable, and trusted by the businessWrite advanced, high-performance SQL.Understand the underlying database technology: execution plans, indexing, clustering, and storage behaviorDebug data issues deeply, tracing problems across systemsUse Python for ETL automation, scriptingBuild and enforce data quality checks that prevent bad data from reaching consumersMonitor pipelines proactively and resolve issuesWhat You Bring5+ years of hands-on data engineering experience - including administration or support. Fintech or similarly data-intensive environments preferredExpert-level SQL: joins, window functions, performance trade-offsProven experience building data models and marts from raw, imperfect source dataSolid Python skills applied to practical data engineering problemsHands-on experience with Snowflake, Airflow, Fivetran, and DBT.A high bar for data quality - you don't trust a number until you've validated itThe ability to operate independently, make decisions under ambiguity, and follow problems through to resolutionWhat Sets You ApartYou've debugged data issues others couldn't explainYou've worked with poorly documented or unreliable source systems and made them usableYou've said "this number is wrong" - and proved itYou care about correctness as much as performanceYou default to solving problems, not escalating themJoin our dynamic team and contribute to Above Lending’s success as we continue to provide innovative lending solutions to our customers.Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), Above Lending is informing California residents who are our job applicants, contractors or prospective employees (together “job applicants”) about the categories of personal information we collect about you and the purposes for which we will use this information. This notice and our Privacy Policy contain important information relating to the CCPA and apply only to personal information that is subject to the CCPA. Please see our website for the full CCPA statement.*Above Lending is an equal opportunity Employer*Above Lending does not accept unsolicited resumes from individual recruiters or third-party recruiting agencies in response to job positions.  No fee will be paid to their parties who submit unsolicited candidates directly to Above Lending employees or the Above Lending Finance and HR teams.  No placement fee will be paid to any third party unless such a request has been made by the Above Lending HR team.We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.