PIPELINE - L5 Principal Software Engineer
Klaviyo
$244,000 - $366,000 / year
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Description
At Klaviyo, we value the unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives each Klaviyo (we call ourselves Klaviyos) brings to our workplace each and every day. We believe everyone deserves a fair shot at success and appreciate the experiences each person brings beyond the traditional job requirements. If you’re a close but not exact match with the description, we hope you’ll still consider applying. Want to learn more about life at Klaviyo? Visit klaviyo.com/careers to see how we empower creators to own their own destiny.
You'll design and ship systems that are fast, reliable, cost‑efficient, and safe for autonomous access, creating paved roads for data producers and consumers, human and agent alike. This is an individual‑contributor role (no direct reports); you lead through architecture, code, and influence. Expectations align to Lead/Principal IC behaviors: establishing SLOs, driving technical evolution, and acting as the interface across teams.
What You'll Do
- Design and implement core data platform capabilities (e.g., event ingestion/CDC, stream processing, batch orchestration, data lake/warehouse patterns, catalog/lineage, governance, access, and compliance).
- Define and uphold SLOs for data freshness, availability, and correctness; author/run readiness reviews, incident response, and post‑incident learning for your domain.
- Author ADRs/RFCs, land data contracts and schema governance, and standardize connectors and templates that accelerate developer velocity.
- Profile, tune, and right‑size systems for performance and cost; partner with FinOps on unit‑economics guardrails.
- Pair with product teams and analytics/ML to expose the right abstractions and unblock customer value quickly.
- Contribute high‑quality code and reviews; mentor Staff/ Sr. engineers across pillars through example and enablement (not line management).
- Use AI to streamline data workflows, from authoring and testing pipelines to catalog/search and DQ, so analysts, ML, and product teams move faster with confidence.
- Experience: 10+ years building and operating distributed data systems (e.g., Kafka/PubSub, Flink/Spark/Beam, Airflow/Dagster, Iceberg/Delta/Hudi; Snowflake/BigQuery; object storage) with multi‑tenant reliability.
- Technical expertise: Data ingestion/CDC, stream processing, batch orchestration, lakehouse patterns, catalog/lineage, governance, and access controls, measured by freshness, availability, and correctness SLOs.
- AI tools & automation: You apply ML/GenAI to data platforms - semantic catalog search, auto‑docs, data‑quality anomaly detection, SQL/pipeline generation - with human‑in‑the‑loop review and privacy controls.
- Influence & enablement: You land data contracts, connectors, and templates that speed delivery for producers and consumers; you mentor via design docs and pairing.
- AI fluency (Klaviyo default): You experiment, learn fast, and share AI wins responsibly.
- Regional isolation/replication strategies, privacy‑by‑design, and data governance in regulated contexts.
- Adopted paved roads: Producers/consumers are on standard ingestion, processing, and storage paths; schema governance and contracts reduce breakage.
- SLOs & efficiency: ≥99.9% freshness for key domains; measurable cost/TB reductions; production debugging is faster with defined readiness reviews and incident learning.
- AI‑augmented data operations: Semantic discovery and auto‑documentation cover the majority of high‑value datasets; AI‑assisted DQ monitors reduce data incidents on top pipelines by 25–40%; pipeline authoring and review times drop 15–25% with AI in the loop.
- Adopted “paved roads” for producers/consumers; ≥99.9% freshness SLO for key domains; measurable cost/TB reductions.
- One or more step‑change improvements (e.g., 2× faster ingest → analytics latency) demonstrated with metrics and post‑incident trend‑down.
Massachusetts Applicants:
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.
Our salary range reflects the cost of labor across various U.S. geographic markets. The range displayed below reflects the minimum and maximum target salaries for the position across all our US locations. The base salary offered for this position is determined by several factors, including the applicant’s job-related skills, relevant experience, education or training, and work location.
In addition to base salary, our total compensation package may include participation in the company’s annual cash bonus plan, variable compensation (OTE) for sales and customer success roles, equity, sign-on payments, and a comprehensive range of health, welfare, and wellbeing benefits based on eligibility.
Your recruiter can provide more details about the specific salary/OTE range for your preferred location during the hiring process.
This role may require up to 10% travel for purposes such as new hire onboarding, client or partner work if applicable, team meetings, and industry events. Travel is coordinated in advance.
Get to Know Klaviyo
We’re Klaviyo (pronounced clay-vee-oh). We empower creators to own their destiny by making first-party data accessible and actionable like never before. We see limitless potential for the technology we’re developing to nurture personalized experiences in ecommerce and beyond. To reach our goals, we need our own crew of remarkable creators—ambitious and collaborative teammates who stay focused on our north star: delighting our customers. If you’re ready to do the best work of your career, where you’ll be welcomed as your whole self from day one and supported with generous benefits, we hope you’ll join us.
AI fluency at Klaviyo includes responsible use of AI (including privacy, security, bias awareness, and human-in-the-loop). We provide accommodations as needed.
By participating in Klaviyo’s interview process, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and will adhere to our Guidelines for using AI in the Klaviyo interview Process. For more information about how we process your personal data, see our Job Applicant Privacy Notice.
Klaviyo is committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non-discrimination. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, citizenship, national origin, color, religion or religious creed, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, veteran or active military status, marital status, criminal record, genetics, retaliation, sexual harassment or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
Benefits
- stock options
About this role
Klaviyo is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to own the technical direction of its data platform—the systems that ingest, process, store, and govern billions of daily events across billions of consumer profiles. You'll design and operate core capabilities spanning event ingestion, stream processing, batch orchestration, data lakes, and governance, with the added complexity that this data now powers not just human analysts but autonomous AI agents. The role demands deep expertise in distributed data systems (Kafka, Flink, Spark, Airflow, Iceberg, Snowflake, and similar tools) and a track record of building multi-tenant systems that meet strict SLOs for freshness, availability, and correctness.
This is an individual contributor position where you lead through architecture, code review, and influence across teams. You'll define SLOs, author design documents and RFCs, mentor senior engineers, and partner with product and analytics teams to unblock value. A key part of the mandate is applying AI and automation to data workflows—semantic search, auto-documentation, anomaly detection, and pipeline generation—so that analysts and ML engineers move faster. You're expected to profile systems for performance and cost, drive incident response and learning, and establish standardized connectors and data contracts that accelerate developer velocity.
You'll need 10+ years building and operating distributed data systems with hands-on expertise across the full stack: ingestion, CDC, stream and batch processing, lakehouse patterns, catalog, lineage, governance, and access controls. Fluency with AI tools and a track record of landing paved roads and data contracts are essential. The role is based in Boston and requires in-office work. Compensation ranges from $244,000 to $366,000, with additional benefits including equity and cash bonus eligibility.
How this employer is doing
caution
- News: Recently Raised Funding
- H1B: Sponsors Visas
- Layoffs in News
- Recent Acquisition
In the news
Boston-based tech company Klaviyo announces layoffs, NBC Boston
This role's local market on JobMinglr
Pay for this role
$244,000 to $366,000 per year
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