Backend Engineer

About Our Client

Our client is a leading enterprise data platform company building an open, high-performance data lakehouse for AI and analytical workloads. The platform combines an intelligent SQL query engine, an AI-ready semantic layer, and an open catalog built on Apache Iceberg — enabling Fortune 500 companies across finance, energy, manufacturing, and logistics to unify, query, and govern data at massive scale across cloud and on-premise sources.

About the Role

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer for the connectivity stack of a large-scale data platform. The work spans three areas:

• Client connectivity — drivers and client libraries used by applications and BI tools
• Source connectivity — connectors to databases and data systems, including authentication, metadata discovery, and query/data pushdown, with certification and upgrade support
• Agent & service connectivity — tool interfaces and integrations for AI-agent access to the platform

Deep expertise in one of these areas is enough — you'll grow into the adjacent ones over time. This is a role for an engineer who cares about API and protocol stability, backward compatibility, and interoperability with the tools enterprises actually use. You will lead the design and delivery of substantial components, working within an established architecture alongside US-based engineering reviewers.

This is a systems-level, backend engineering role focused on drivers, protocols, and distributed services — not application development or CRUD services.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and delivery of connectivity components — client drivers, source connectors, and service integrations — turning ambiguous initiatives into well-scoped, reviewable milestones
• Produce technical designs, explain architectural trade-offs, and surface compatibility, security, and delivery risks early
• Maintain backward compatibility and API/protocol stability; build compatibility, interoperability, and performance test suites
• Develop and maintain connectors for major BI tools, collaborating with the technology partners behind them
• Diagnose complex client/server, protocol, and distributed-system failures; drive root-cause analysis of customer-reported and escaped defects
• Improve diagnostics, logging, observability, and supportability of the connectivity stack
• Contribute upstream to open-source projects (e.g., Apache Arrow) where agreed
• Mentor engineers, participate in code and design reviews, and communicate progress and risks clearly across a distributed team

Required Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent practical experience
• 8+ years of production software engineering experience
• Deep proficiency in Java or C++, and the ability to work effectively in another systems/services language
• Experience designing and debugging APIs, protocols, client libraries, or distributed services
• Strong fundamentals: data structures, concurrency, asynchronous programming, networking, and failure handling
• A track record of comprehensive testing — unit, integration, compatibility, and performance
• Experience with production CI/CD, release processes, and engineering quality controls
• Working knowledge of SQL
• Comfortable with AI-assisted development workflows — using modern AI tools productively while critically validating their output
• Clear written and verbal communication in a distributed engineering environment; English Upper-Intermediate or higher (B2+)
• Availability to work EU business hours shifted 2–3 hours later for daily overlap with US West Coast mornings

Desired Skills

• JDBC, ODBC, ADBC, or database-driver development experience
• Apache Arrow (including Arrow Flight)
• SQL engines, databases, or data platforms
• Source-connector development for databases, warehouses, or SaaS systems
• MCP or agent-tool integrations
• OAuth, OIDC, TLS, and enterprise authentication flows
• Cross-platform native build, packaging, and release experience
• BI-tool interoperability (Power BI, Tableau) and partner collaboration
• Observability and production diagnostics
• Open-source contribution experience

Details

• Engagement: Long-term contract
• Location: Europe (EU / EEA / UK), remote
• Working hours: EU business hours, shifted 2–3 hours later for daily overlap with the US West Coast team