Staff Data Engineer

About the job

About MoonPay

MoonPay is for builders with something to prove.

This isn't a "work on cool crypto stuff" company. It's a high-standards, high-velocity, high-accountability company building the operating system for value movement. If the internet moves information, we move value: crypto, stablecoins, tokenized assets, and whatever comes next. Four offerings make that real: fund, tokenize, trade, and spend. 30M+ customers and 500+ ecosystem partners run on us. Licensed in the U.S. Regulated across the UK, EU, Canada, and Australia.

AI is the default operating mode here. It's woven into every role, and we expect you to use it daily. It handles the manual work so you can deliver on what actually matters.

You'll thrive here if outcomes excite you more than process, if impact motivates you more than titles, and if you want hard problems, real ownership, and teammates who love winning, building, and doing it together.

The bar is high. The pace is real. We're building for what's next, for humans and agents.
Recent recognition:

Forbes' America's Best Startup Employers 2026 .
2nd in Crypto Services on Fortune's inaugural Crypto 100
The Sunday Times Best Places to Work two years running
Research has shown that women are less likely than men to apply for this role if they do not have experience in 100% of these areas. Please know that this list is indicative, and that we would still love to hear from you even if you feel that you are only a 75% match. Skills can be learned, diversity cannot.

1. About the Opportunity ✍️

This is a hands-on technical leadership role with the opportunity to shape the long-term direction of our data platform.

You will lead the design and evolution of the systems that power analytics, product insights, integrations, and machine learning across MoonPay. Working across teams, you’ll solve complex challenges spanning architecture, reliability, scalability, governance, and cost efficiency within a regulated environment.

We’re looking for an engineer who can move confidently between setting technical direction and contributing directly to implementation. Your impact will come from evolving and adding new capabilities to our platform, establishing shared engineering patterns, and helping teams make pragmatic decisions that support both immediate delivery and long-term growth.

2. What you will do

As a Staff Data Engineer on our Data Platform team, you’ll provide technical leadership across the platform while remaining closely involved in design and delivery.

Day-to-day, you will:

• Set and evolve the technical direction of our data platform across streaming, batch processing, warehousing, orchestration, governance, and machine learning enablement.
• Lead the design and delivery of complex, cross-team initiatives from early architectural decisions through to implementation
• Design and build core platform capabilities, from reliable real-time pipelines, shared tooling, reusable frameworks, and scalable data infrastructure for other teams
• Establish and champion golden paths that enable teams to build securely, consistently, and efficiently.
• Improve platform reliability, scalability, performance, and cost efficiency as data volumes and use cases grow.
• Partner with Security, Compliance, Product, and Engineering teams to ensure our systems meet operational and regulatory requirements.
• Identify systemic risks, reduce unnecessary complexity, and guide pragmatic, incremental improvements to the platform.
• Strengthen engineering standards across data modelling, pipeline design, observability, testing, deployment automation, and infrastructure as code.
• Influence technical priorities and planning by working closely with engineering managers, product managers, and senior technical leaders.
• Mentor senior engineers and raise technical capability through design reviews, code reviews, documentation, and hands-on collaboration.

💻 What you will be working with/on

• GCP
• Pub/Sub and Kafka
• Apache Beam
• Bigtable
• Redis
• Kubernetes
• Airflow
• BigQuery
• Terraform
• Python and SQL
• Real-time and batch processing
• Data governance, quality, and observability

3. About You

You’re a systems thinker who has helped design and scale data platforms used by multiple teams. You’re comfortable operating across architecture, hands-on delivery, and organisation-wide technical influence.

You value pragmatic solutions, strong engineering foundations, and quality outcomes over complexity for its own sake.

We’re looking for someone who brings:

• Significant experience designing and evolving large-scale data platforms, distributed and stream processing systems
• Deep knowledge of real-time and event-driven architectures using technologies such as Kafka or Pub/Sub.
• A track record of leading complex technical initiatives that span multiple teams or domains.
• Experience building platform capabilities, shared services, and engineering patterns that other teams can adopt
• Strong judgement across reliability, scalability, performance, governance, security, and cost management.
• The ability to move between high-level architectural decisions and hands-on implementation.
• Experience influencing engineers and stakeholders around shared technical standards and long-term priorities
• A team-first approach, with a passion for mentoring experienced engineers and raising the technical bar
• Strong communication skills and the ability to make complex technical decisions clear to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working in a regulated environment, or designing systems with strong compliance and auditability requirements

Experience with our specific technology stack is helpful, but architectural judgement, systems thinking, and technical leadership matter more than expertise in any one tool.
Salary Bandings: $260,000 - $274,000

Research has shown that women are less likely than men to apply for this role if they do not have experience in 100% of these areas. Please know that this list is indicative, and that we would still love to hear from you even if you feel that you are only a 75% match. Skills can be learned, diversity cannot.

Benefits & Perks 💡

• 💰 Competitive salary package
• 🤝 Equity package: financial freedom starts with our employees, so all employees have ownership at MoonPay
• 📈 Pay-for-performance equity bonus: those who drive outsized outcomes receive outsized rewards
• 🚀 Moonshot award: we honor exceptional impact. 20 employees a year, each earning a $250,000 equity grant
• 📊Pension: employer contributions from day one
• 🎁Employee referral program: refer great people, earn 10K in USDC
• 🏝 Flexible Time Off: choose when to work and when to switch off
• 🔋Recharge Period: end-of-year company-wide time off to rest and reset
• 🎂 Birthday leave: take the day off to celebrate you
• 🍼 Enhanced parental leave: more time with family, no second thought
• 🌍 Hybrid working schedule: work fully remotely or from your nearest Moonbase
• 🚆 Commuter benefits: public transport to and from the office
• 🩺 Private healthcare benefits: to protect you and your loved ones
• 🧘 Wellhub wellness membership: access to gyms, studios, classes, and wellness apps in one membership
• 🤖 Enterprise access to the latest AI tools: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and whatever's next
• 🍱 Lunch credit: meals covered on the days you're in the office
• 🪑 Home office setup allowance: build the home office of your dreams
• 👛 Remote working allowance: those working fully remotely get a little extra for utilities
• 🌕 Monthly product budget and zero-fee crypto transactions
• 📚 $1,000 Annual training budget: we support your learning journey
• 🎯 High Potential Program: structured development, mentorship, and stretch opportunities
• ✈️ Regular remote company offsites: high-impact in-person sessions and hackathons
• 🚲 (Ireland) Cycle to Work scheme: tax-efficient bike, gear, and safety kit
• 🔌 (UK) EV Salary Sacrifice: lease an electric vehicle through pre-tax salary