Data Platform Tech Lead

Data Platform Tech Lead
Location: Boston, MA (Hybrid — 2 days per week in office)

About Us

Clasp is a venture-backed, mission-driven startup transforming access to education and career pathways. We are revolutionizing the way employers attract and retain critical talent, while simultaneously tackling the student debt crisis. (Yep, we think BIG.) Our innovative platform meaningfully connects employers, educational institutions, and diverse talent to drive mutual benefit—using accessible education financing as the thread. We like to think of ourselves as more than a fintech; we’re a catalyst for economic mobility.

A Forbes Fintech 50 company, portfolio company of SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management — the largest HR organization out there!) and recipient of “43 Start Ups to Bet Your Career On in 2025” by Business Insider, Clasp is driven by our commitment to social impact and innovation. We are reshaping the future of the workforce one opportunity at a time. Join us on our journey to give power to learners and unlock fulfilling careers that drive positive change in their communities and beyond.

The Role – Data Platform Tech Lead

At Clasp, our full-stack Data team is responsible for building and operating the data backbone that connects our go-to-market systems, internal application systems, and our data warehouse. As we scale, we’re evolving the team’s structure: the core will focus on data orchestration, reliability, and interoperability, with some additional downstream reporting & analytics ownership as we scale the business. We’re seeking a strong leader to own the roadmap and execution of this transformation.

You will own the design, build-out, and operation of the data infrastructure that moves data reliably and consistently between systems, into our data warehouse, and out to analytics and consumer layers. You’ll lead a small team, define SLAs, build observability, and drive standards. We will empower you to act as a product owner for the “data as infrastructure” layer. You will partner closely with reporting, BI, and analytics stakeholders to ensure data flows and semantic models are fit for purpose.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and operational health of the data-orchestration layer (ingestion, transformation, movement, observability) across internal systems, go-to-market systems (CRM, CS, etc.), and the data warehouse.

• Lead a team of data engineers/ETL analysts on day-to-day project work

• Define with leadership and enforce data pipelines' SLAs, error-recovery strategies, schema change management, metadata/lineage documentation.

• Lead cross-system interoperability work: identify how data flows between source systems, warehouse, downstream consumers; design abstractions; reduce redundancy and latency.

• Partner with reporting/analytics teams to ensure data models (via e.g., dbt) align with consumption needs, but shift ownership of reporting to those teams.

• Own and evolve tooling around data quality, observability, lineage, and cataloging; propose infrastructure improvements.

• Evangelize “data as product/infrastructure” mindset across the organization: define APIs, data contracts, service level commitments to downstream analytics users.

Who You Are

• Deep engineering chops: you have hands-on experience with cloud data platforms, ingestion tools, orchestration frameworks (e.g., Airflow, Dagster), data modeling (star/snowflake, semantic layers), and you’re excited to be hands-on reviewing and contributing code.

• A systems-thinking, product-oriented senior data leader: you understand not only individual ETL pipelines, but how data moves through a complex ecosystem of systems and consumers.

• Excellent communicator: you can translate technical trade-offs (latency vs. cost, coupling vs. autonomy) into business impact; you can influence across analytics, product, operations, and leadership functions.

• Quality-obsessed: you believe that reliability, observability, and monitoring are first-class concerns in data infrastructure.

• Empowering, not controlling: you believe downstream analytics/reporting teams (e.g., business-ops, product analytics) should own their dashboards, and you’re excited about enabling them rather than owning it all yourself.

• A bias for documentation, standards, processes: you are comfortable putting structure around engineering practices and data governance, but you aren’t dogmatic—you balance speed and pragmatism.

What You’ll Need

• 5+ years of experience in data engineering / data infrastructure roles, of which 2+ years managing/leading other engineers or architects.

• Expert experience with orchestration tooling (e.g., Airflow, Dagster), ingestion frameworks, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure), and data-warehouse technologies (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, etc).

• Expert experience with data modeling, semantic layers (dbt or equivalent), metadata/lineage tooling, data quality frameworks.

• Strong knowledge of API design, data contracts, system interoperability, micro-services or event-driven data architectures is a plus.

• Proven track record designing and implementing data pipelines/infrastructure across multiple source systems into a data warehouse/lakehouse environment.

• Prior experience partnering with analytics/business teams (even if not owning dashboards) — able to translate needs into infrastructure requirements and deliver.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to present to senior leadership and cross-functional audiences.

• Experience building or improving observability, monitoring, alerting for data pipelines.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics or equivalent (or equivalent real-world experience). Master’s or additional certifications are a plus.

Why This Role Is Compelling

• You will own the foundation that enables data-driven decision making across the company — becoming the linchpin between operational systems, the data warehouse, and business insights.

• You will have the autonomy to build a modern, reliable data-infrastructure team and define the future state of how data flows across systems.

• You’ll partner with senior leadership, product, analytics, operations and enable scale — shaping how our organization uses and trusts its data.

• You’ll play a key role in the transition of the data team from “reporting responsibility” to “infrastructure responsibility”, freeing the business to own analytics while the platform team frees up the bottlenecks.

• You’ll join at a moment of transformation — the choice of tooling, the shaping of staffing model, the standardizing of data practices — and your work will have visible impact.

Salary

Compensation: The salary range for this position is competitive and will be commensurate with the candidate's experience, qualifications, and industry knowledge, ranging between $170,000 to $185,000 annually. In addition to the base salary, we offer an attractive equity component as part of our compensation package, providing an opportunity for eligible employees to share in the success and growth of our company. We are committed to offering competitive compensation and benefits packages to attract and retain top talent.

Closing

If you are a highly driven individual with a passion for technology, and you thrive in a dynamic and fast-paced environment, we want to hear from you! Join us in revolutionizing the workforce solution industry and making a meaningful impact on businesses worldwide. Apply now to be a part of our growing team!

We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where all employees feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute their unique perspectives and talents. Clasp is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind. We embrace diversity and are dedicated to providing equal employment opportunities to all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.