Data Engineer (L5) - Games

Netflix is one of the world's leading entertainment services, with over 300 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

Games are our next big frontier and an incredible opportunity for us to deliver new experiences to delight and entertain our quickly growing membership. You will be joining us at an exciting time as we roll out more games on both mobile and cloud and be in a position to help us redefine what a Netflix subscription means for our members around the world.

The Data Science and Engineering (DSE) team uses data, analytics, and sciences to improve various aspects of our business. As a Senior Data Engineer focused on Core Metrics and Metadata, you will be a foundational partner, leveraging high-quality data to support end-to-end analytics needs for our Games partners.

What You'll Do:

• As a Senior Data Engineer, your focus will be on architecting the foundation for all business measurements across our games portfolio on all platforms.

• Own Core Metric Systems: Design, develop, and maintain the single source of truth for core business and operational metrics (e.g., DAU/MAU, retention, engagement rates). Ensure metric consistency, explainability, and reliability for high-stakes business decisions.

• Data Modeling Architecture: Create advanced analytical data models (facts, dimensions, aggregations) optimized for performance, partitioning, and backfill considerations.

• Implement High-Reliability Pipelines: Build and optimize robust, high-volume data pipelines using distributed processing frameworks like Spark, Flink, Python, and Scala. Master complex processing patterns (batch, CDC, incremental loads, upserts) and address challenges like event-time partitioning, late data handling, and windowing for real-time applications.

• Data Governance and Quality Leadership: Define and enforce data quality standards (accuracy, completeness, consistency, validity) at scale. Implement data lineage tracking and monitor metadata to provide the necessary context for interpreting core metrics.

• Strategic Collaboration: Partner with Games Product, Data Science, and Engineering stakeholders to translate their forecasting, research, and analytical needs into scalable data solutions. Collaborate on strategies for metric collection, dashboarding, and integration with analytical tools.

• Technical Leadership: Proactively identify and resolve technical debt, increase automation, and champion best practices in data engineering and software development across the team. Mentor junior team members and help raise the technical bar for the entire DSE organization.

Who You Are:
We value people over process and look for humbly confident, action-oriented collaborators with deep technical expertise.

• Experience: 7+ years of hands-on experience in software development with a deep focus on building high-performance data systems that collect, process, and govern high-volume telemetry data for analytics.

• Technical Expertise (The Core Domain):

• Expert-level Data Modeling: Proven mastery of telemetry (event schema design) and analytical modeling (dimensional modeling, aggregation strategies, partitioning considerations).

• Distributed Processing Mastery: Demonstrated experience building production-grade data pipelines using distributed processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Flink, Hive/Hadoop), with a strong understanding of distributed systems and performance optimization.

• Advanced Data Processing: Direct experience with complex batch and streaming data processing patterns, including CDC, incremental loads, event-driven architectures, and robust error handling.

• Programming & SQL: Expert-level programming proficiency in Python and/or Scala/Java and mastery of SQL. You maintain a strong software engineering mindset.

• Partnership and Leadership:

• Strong Partnership Skills: Exceptional communication skills and a proven ability to collaborate effectively with non-technical stakeholders to ensure metrics are accessible, reliable, and actionable.

• Proven ability to drive and own complex, cross-functional engineering projects with a high degree of autonomy.

• Humble confidence and the awareness to recognize when to course-correct, valuing continuous learning and improvement.

Our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $170,000 - $720,000.

Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs.  Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off. See more detail about our Benefits here.

Inclusion is a Netflix value and we strive to host a meaningful interview experience for all candidates. If you want an accommodation/adjustment for a disability or any other reason during the hiring process, please send a request to your recruiting partner.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Job is open for no less than 7 days and will be removed when the position is filled.