Senior Data Platform Engineer

Join Proton and build a better internet where privacy is the default

Proton was founded in 2014 by scientists from CERN on a simple truth: privacy is a fundamental human right. Since then, we’ve built the world’s largest encrypted email service (Proton Mail) and expanded into Proton VPN, Proton Drive, Proton Pass, and Proton Calendar—tools used by millions globally to protect their freedom, fight censorship, and keep their data safe. In some situations, Proton has literally helped save lives!

We are profitable, independent (no VC control), and selectively hire from the top ~1% of applicants. Our 700+ team members across 50+ countries come from leading organizations and elite academic backgrounds. We move fast, keep hierarchy light, and prioritize impact over optics. If you want to do meaningful work with exceptionally high-caliber people, this is it. Join us and do work you can truly be proud of. Check our open-source projects here!

The Proton Data team is responsible for everything that enables the company to make data-driven decisions, with our on-premise, custom data platform at the center. We are looking for a Senior Data Platform Engineer, to help maintain, improve and consolidate the data pipelines in our data platform, and help it take our data platform to the next level.

What you will do:

• Drive end-to-end data engineering and data platform initiatives, from problem discovery and technical design to implementation, rollout, documentation, and long-term ownership.
• Design, build, and operate reliable, scalable, and maintainable data pipelines that support analytics, product insights, experimentation, and business-critical reporting.
• Work with large-scale batch and streaming data processing systems, ensuring data is accurate, timely, observable, and easy to consume.
• Collaborate closely with engineering, product, analytics, data science, and business stakeholders to understand needs, clarify requirements, and translate them into pragmatic technical solutions.
• Improve the reliability, performance, and operational maturity of the data platform, including monitoring, alerting, data quality checks, failure handling, and incident response.
• Contribute to the evolution of our data architecture, including data modeling, warehouse/lakehouse practices, schema design, data contracts, ingestion patterns, and platform standards.
• Help identify gaps in our current data ecosystem and propose scalable solutions that reduce complexity, improve developer experience, and enable teams to move faster.
• Lead technical discussions and contribute to design reviews, architecture decisions, and roadmap planning for data platform initiatives.
• Mentor and support other engineers through code reviews, pairing, technical guidance, and knowledge sharing.
• Promote strong engineering practices across the team, including testing, documentation, observability, maintainability, and thoughtful trade-off analysis.
• Take ownership of ambiguous or cross-functional problems and help turn them into clear, actionable initiatives with measurable impact.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of relevant professional experience in data engineering, data platform engineering, backend engineering, distributed systems, or a closely related field.
• Strong software engineering skills, with excellent knowledge of Scala and/or Java, as well as solid Python experience. Experience writing production-grade, maintainable, and well-tested code is expected.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, including scalability, fault tolerance, consistency trade-offs, resource management, and operational failure modes.
• Solid experience designing, building, and operating data pipelines in production environments, including batch and/or streaming workloads.
• Experience with Apache Spark is highly recommended, especially in large-scale data processing environments.
• Strong knowledge of databases, SQL, query optimization, data modeling, and data access patterns.
• Good understanding of data warehouse and data lakehouse best practices in Big Data environments, including partitioning, schema evolution, data quality, reliability, observability, and performance considerations.
• Experience working with large datasets, with the ability to reason about scalability, performance, cost, reliability, and operational trade-offs.
• Ability to drive technical initiatives end-to-end, from problem framing and solution design to implementation, rollout, documentation, and long-term ownership.
• Comfortable working with ambiguity and translating broad business or platform needs into pragmatic technical plans.
• Strong communication skills, with experience collaborating across engineering, analytics, product, and business teams.
• Mentoring experience, including supporting other engineers through technical guidance, code reviews, design discussions, and knowledge sharing.
• A strong ownership mindset, with the ability to identify problems, propose solutions, align stakeholders, and move initiatives forward without requiring constant direction.

Bonus points for: 

• Experience with Kubernetes and containerized workloads in production environments.
• Experience with workflow orchestration, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, or cloud-native data platform tooling.
• Experience with streaming technologies such as Kafka, Flink, Spark Structured Streaming, or similar.
• Experience with observability tooling, monitoring, alerting, incident response, and operational excellence practices.
• Experience building internal platforms, developer tooling, self-service data products, or shared infrastructure used by multiple teams.
• Familiarity with ClickHouse, Trino, Iceberg, Delta Lake, dbt, Airflow, Argo Workflows, or similar technologies.

What We Offer

• Work that Matters: millions of people trust Proton with their privacy. We answer only to our users — not advertisers, not investors with conflicting agendas, not governments. The work you do here is real, and the impact is measurable. (read more about our impact here)
• Stock Options: at Proton, we all have the opportunity to be owners of the company. From day one, you have a real stake in what we're building. When Proton wins, you win.
• Technology: you'll get the right hardware and the right software you need to do your best work.
• Learning & Development: we invest in your growth because sharp people make us better. Proton is one of the fastest ways to accelerate your career because you'll be thrown into real challenges, with real ownership, from day one.
• Employee Benefits: your wellbeing isn't an afterthought. We offer strong health coverage, solid retirement options, generous leave, and wellness support so you can bring your best self to work every day
• In-Person Collaboration: Amazing things happen when passionate, smart, and purposeful people get together in the same room. With offices across Geneva, Zürich, Barcelona, London and more, you'll spend most of your time collaborating face-to-face with people who genuinely care about what they're building
• Food: Lunch and snacks are on us every day in our offices so you can focus on the work and not on what's for lunch.
• Transport: getting to the office shouldn't cost you. We cover public transport, bike allowances, or parking, whichever works for you.
• Flexible Working: you own your schedule. Set hours that work for you and your team — because outcomes matter more than when the clock says you started.

Compensation range
Barcelona: 50.000 - 78.000 EUR gross annually
Other locations: Compensation will be discussed during the interview process
Final compensation will be determined based on the candidate's qualifications, skills, and previous experience

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

At Proton, we believe diversity drives innovation and strengthens our mission to provide privacy as a default for all. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical ability, or socio-economic background, feel valued and empowered. We strive to create equal opportunities, promote open dialogue, and support continuous learning to ensure every voice is heard and respected.

If you need any extra support or reasonable adjustments during the hiring process, please let your talent partner know.

Candidate Privacy Notice

When you apply for a position, refer a candidate, or are considered for a role at Proton Technologies AG (Proton, we, us, or our), your information is stored in Greenhouse, in accordance with their Service Privacy Policy. This information is used to evaluate your suitability for the posted position. We also retain this information for consideration for future roles that you may apply for or that we believe may align with your background and skills.

If we no longer have a legitimate business need to process your information, we will either delete or anonymize it. Should you have any inquiries about how we use or manage your information, or if you wish to access, correct, or delete your data, please contact our privacy team at careers@proton.ch.

Proton does not accept unsolicited resumes from any sources other than directly from candidates. We will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from an unsolicited offer, even if the candidate is subsequently hired by Proton.

To learn more about our privacy policy, please visit our privacy policy page.