[Remote] Senior Data Reliability Engineer AWS

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Empower is a financial services company helping customers achieve financial freedom. The Senior Data Reliability Engineer will own the reliability, stability, and operational excellence of Empower’s AWS-based data platform by operating, troubleshooting, and improving production data systems. The role focuses on resilient data pipelines, incident response, monitoring, automation, disaster recovery, and operational practices.

Responsibilities

• Own the reliability and stability of production data pipelines and data platform services
• Diagnose and resolve data pipeline failures, delays, and data quality issues in production environments
• Investigate issues across distributed data systems (e.g., Spark/EMR workloads, ingestion pipelines, warehouse performance)
• Lead or support incident response, including triage, mitigation, and long-term resolution
• Perform root cause analysis (RCA) and implement durable fixes to prevent recurrence
• Define and improve data SLAs (freshness, latency, completeness) and ensure adherence
• Design and enhance monitoring, alerting, and observability for data systems
• Develop automation and tooling to reduce operational toil and improve system resilience
• Contribute to disaster recovery (DR) and resiliency planning, including backup validation and recovery workflows
• Partner with engineering teams to improve pipeline design, reliability, and operational readiness
• Create and maintain runbooks, SOPs, and operational documentation
• Participate in occasional off-hours support for production data systems when required

Skills

• Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S
• Minimum 5 years of experience working with production data platforms in AWS environments
• Prior experience building data pipelines and seeing them through production, including exposure to real-world failures and operational challenges
• Strong experience with Python and SQL in real data systems
• Hands-on experience troubleshooting distributed data processing systems (e.g., Spark/EMR, Redshift, streaming systems)
• Proven ability to debug and resolve production issues in data pipelines and data platforms
• Experience with AWS data services (such as EMR, Redshift, DynamoDB, S3, or similar)
• Experience handling production incidents and performing root cause analysis
• Strong problem-solving mindset and ability to work through ambiguous production issues
• For remote and hybrid positions you will be required to provide reliable high-speed internet with a wired connection as well as a place in your home to work with limited disruption
• You must have reliable connectivity from an internet service provider that is fiber, cable or DSL internet
• Experience handling real-world data issues such as pipeline delays or failures
• Experience with backfills and reprocessing
• Experience with late-arriving or incomplete data
• Experience improving observability and alerting specifically for data systems
• Experience influencing or guiding data pipeline reliability and operational practices
• Exposure to streaming/event-driven systems (Kafka, Kinesis, CDC patterns)
• Experience with disaster recovery, backup validation, and resiliency testing
• Strong communication during incidents with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Benefits

• Flexible work environment
• Fluid career paths and internal mobility
• Medical, dental, vision and life insurance
• Retirement savings – 401(k) plan with generous company matching contributions (up to 6%), financial advisory services, potential company discretionary contribution, and a broad investment lineup
• Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250/year
• Business-casual environment that includes the option to wear jeans
• Generous paid time off upon hire – including a paid time off program plus ten paid company holidays and three floating holidays each calendar year
• Paid volunteer time — 16 hours per calendar year
• Leave of absence programs – including paid parental leave, paid short- and long-term disability, and Family and Medical Leave (FMLA)
• Business Resource Groups (BRGs) – BRGs facilitate inclusion and collaboration across our business internally and throughout the communities where we live, work and play. BRGs are open to all.
• Remote work arrangement
• Necessary computer equipment will be provided

Company Overview