Senior Data Engineer

Zendesk is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to join our Data Platform & Analytics teams. You will play a pivotal role in building a robust data foundation that powers insights for over 170,000 global businesses. Your work will directly impact how Zendesk leverages data to improve customer support, internal product analytics, and machine learning initiatives.This is an autonomous, high-impact role offering the chance to grow your skills while collaborating with cross-functional engineering, analytics, and product teams.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable, high-quality ELT/ETL pipelines and data models.

• Build, optimize, and maintain SQL-based data models using dbt and other modern ETL tools.

• Publish well-tested code to production, ensuring reliability, scalability, and maintainability.

• Investigate and resolve production issues, fine-tuning data pipelines for performance and efficiency.

• Collaborate with product managers, engineers, and analysts to define requirements and translate them into actionable solutions.

• Contribute to the team’s technical vision, sharing innovative ideas to enhance Zendesk’s data systems.

• Mentor peers and develop standard methodologies to drive consistent technical excellence.

What You Bring to the Role: Basic Qualifications:

• 4+ years of data engineering experience, with hands-on expertise in building, maintaining, and scaling data pipelines.

• Strong SQL skills and experience with data modeling (Kimball, Inmon, or equivalent).

• Hands-on experience with dbt for data transformations and pipeline management.

• Java, Python, Scala (proficient in at least one)

• Experience with cloud columnar databases (Snowflake) and ELT tools.

• Proven experience in performance testing, capacity planning, and optimizing large-scale data pipelines.

• Excellent collaboration and communication skills across distributed teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• SnowPro Core certification or equivalent hands-on expertise.

• Familiarity with Lean/6 Sigma principles and CRM analytics.

• Experience with Kafka, Flink, Spark, Airflow, or similar frameworks.

• Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform) and BI tools (Tableau, Looker).

Our Tech Stack:

• Data Pipelines: Python/Java, dbt, Airflow, Kafka, Spark, Flink, Hudi

• Databases: Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, AWS S3/Athena/Glue

• Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, GitHub Actions

• BI: Tableau, Looker

Who We’re Looking For: A passionate engineer who loves building scalable, reliable data systems, solving sophisticated problems, and helping drive business insights across Zendesk. You thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment and are eager to contribute to high-impact projects that shape the future of data at Zendesk.