Staff Software Engineer Data - DC Tech Lead

Afresh Technologies is an AI-powered platform company serving the grocery retail and distribution industry. The company develops decision-making software that helps retailers and distributors manage fresh food departments more efficiently by turning large volumes of operational data into actionable recommendations for ordering, inventory, production planning, and buying. Its platform covers a broad range of fresh categories including produce, meat, seafood, deli, and bakery, and is designed to address the inherent complexity of fresh food supply chains such as fluctuating assortments, random-weight products, multiple vendor relationships, and perishability. Afresh's mission is closely tied to sustainability and food waste reduction. By helping grocers order and produce more precisely, the platform directly reduces food shrink — the industry term for unsold or spoiled product — which is a significant contributor to food waste globally. The company has reported that its technology helps retailers avoid millions of pounds of food waste annually, positioning Afresh as a meaningful participant in the climate and food systems space. What distinguishes Afresh is its fresh-first data foundation, built specifically to model the unique characteristics of perishable grocery operations rather than adapting general retail or supply chain software. The platform incorporates AI agents that not only generate recommendations but also automate routine workflows and escalate decisions to human teams when judgment is required, enabling faster and more confident action across store and distribution center operations.

About the Role

As a Staff Data Engineer, on the Distribution Center (DC) Solutions team, you’ll play a technical lead role in building and scaling the data integrations needed to support our suite of DC products. You will design and implement ETLs that reliably process large volumes of customer-provided data and build tools/improve the platform to make customer integrations faster, more accurate, and more scalable. Your work will have a direct and visible impact on our ability to onboard customers more easily and quickly and power our machine learning grocery solution.

What You’ll Do

• Engineering & Data Pipelines: Design, build, and optimize robust ETLs using PySpark and DBT to process large-scale customer datasets while developing tools and frameworks to streamline data integrations and improve scalability.
• Technical Leadership & Strategy: Define the technical vision for DC data architecture, mentor engineers, and manage external contractors to ensure the team delivers high-quality, practical solutions for current and future needs.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Partner with product, engineering, and applied science teams to scope work and deliver data solutions that address real-world challenges in customer data quality and product feature requirements.

What Makes You a Great Fit

We encourage all highly-qualified candidates to apply, even if they don’t meet every listed qualification.

• Significant experience designing and maintaining ETLs that process large-scale datasets.
• Proficiency with Python, PySpark, SQL, and experience working on platforms/tools like Databricks, Snowflake, or DBT.
• 2+ years experience in a technical lead role (e.g. Tech Lead or Engineering Manager), with a willingness to mentor and help others grow.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work with ambiguous or incomplete requirements to deliver concrete, impactful solutions.
• A focus on practical outcomes—you're skilled at balancing technical rigor with the need to get things done.
• Experience working directly with complex, unclean datasets and finding innovative ways to process and analyze them.
• A knack for identifying areas where tooling or automation can simplify workflows and reduce manual effort.
• Excellent communication skills—you’re able to explain your ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

We’re looking for someone who thrives on tackling complex data problems and takes pride in building systems that work seamlessly at scale. If that sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you!

This position is not eligible for immigration sponsorship

Salary Range in US: $168K - $273K + meaningful early-stage equity + benefits