[Remote] Lead Data Engineer (Partner Company Role)

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. FYST is a fintech company looking for a Lead Data Engineer to build a data foundation from the ground up. This hands-on leadership role involves designing data architecture, implementing data pipelines, and growing a data engineering team.ResponsibilitiesDesign the target-state data architecture: Postgres CDC → Kafka → Snowflake → client-facing data productsOwn tooling decisions across ingestion, orchestration, transformation, and quality layersImplement CDC-based ingestion from PostgreSQL services (RDS, Aurora, EC2, K8s operator) using Debezium or equivalentBuild streaming and near-real-time pipelines with defined SLAsBuild a data quality control layer: checksums, reconciliation, schema validation, anomaly detection, and alertingDefine quality checkpoints across the full pipeline — from source capture through Snowflake to client deliveryDefine and enforce data contracts with service-owning teams for core entities: transaction, merchant, settlement, and processing statusBuild the external data delivery layer: financial settlement, transaction status, processor reconciliation, and client analyticsDesign tenant separation and implement replay/reload mechanisms for failure recoveryStart hands-on, then gradually hire and grow a small data engineering team as the function maturesBuild a pragmatic roadmap with concrete deliverables at 3, 6, and 12 monthsSkills5+ years in data engineering with end-to-end ownership of production pipelinesHands-on with Snowflake, PostgreSQL CDC (Debezium preferred), and KafkaSolid AWS experience — S3, RDS, Aurora, and cloud data infrastructureData quality engineering mindset: monitoring, reconciliation, lineageComfortable defining data contracts and driving requirements with backend engineering teamsTechnical leadership experience: project ownership, cross-team alignment, delivery under constraintsFamiliarity with gRPC, RabbitMQ, and reading Go/Python service code is expectedEnglish language skills at the B2 level and fluent russian languageKubernetes, Airflow/Prefect/Dagster, and dbt are strong plusesPayments domain knowledge — settlement, transaction lifecycle, processor integrations — is a strong plusBenefitsCareer prospects - we are young, we have huge ambitions, and it is important that our employees grow with usWork with coworkers who are passionate about their businessCompensation that will fully correspond to the competence and knowledge, with yearly performance reviewsRemote work20 days of vacation time; bank holidays; sick leaves; additional birthday day offCompany OverviewFYST provides technology consultancy for eCommerce and FinTech businesses. It was founded in 2022, and is headquartered in Riga, Riga, LVA, with a workforce of 51-200 employees. Its website is https://fyst.com.