Position
Forward Deployed Engineer (Data Engineering)
Reports to
Engineering Lead (US)
Location: US remote, with preference for Pacific or Mountain Time. Candidates in SF / Bay Area, Austin, Denver, or other emerging team hubs are especially encouraged to apply.
Employment
Full-time, permanent
About Dataro
Dataro is an ethically minded SaaS startup using machine learning to help not-for-profits raise more money and do more good. Our platform powers fundraising for organizations across the world, helping them run smarter campaigns and improve donor engagement using data-driven insights.
Every day we ingest and process hundreds of millions of records from a wide range of fundraising and CRM systems. This data underpins our predictive modeling and analytics products. As we expand in the United States, we're looking for an exceptional engineer who is also an excellent communicator - someone who can work directly with customers, solve technical problems end-to-end, and act as the bridge between clients and our Sydney-based engineering team.
The Role
As a Forward Deployed Engineer (Data Engineering), you will work closely with customers throughout their entire Dataro journey - from integration design and onboarding through to ongoing optimization over multi-year engagements. You will serve as both a technical advisor and a hands-on engineer, building data integrations, diagnosing issues, and shaping client solutions.
You will be one of the first technical hires in the US, so this role requires independence, strong ownership, and the ability to operate confidently in ambiguous situations. If you enjoy client interaction as much as writing great code, this role offers a unique opportunity to have direct impact in both engineering and customer outcomes.
What You'll Do
Work directly with customers to understand their systems, data structures, and fundraising workflows
Act as a bridge between clients, engineering, sales, and customer success - helping translate requirements into solutions
Develop and maintain integrations across dozens of fundraising, CRM, and adjacent platforms
Build, extend, and optimize data pipelines that process and normalize large volumes of records
Troubleshoot and resolve data issues across ingestion, transformation, and delivery pipelines
Collaborate with data scientists and data engineers to ensure Dataro models run effectively for every customer
Guide customers through onboarding, technical implementation, and long-term success with Dataro
Represent the engineering function in-market and advocate for customer needs internally
What You'll Bring
5+ years experience building and supporting real-world data pipelines, including deployment, monitoring, and troubleshooting
Extremely strong SQL skills - comfortable working with large, complex datasets
Extremely strong Python skills, with experience writing production-grade code
Understanding of databases, query optimization, and general software engineering practices
Experience with AWS services (EC2, Batch, Lambda, S3, Athena)
Proven experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing
Excellent communication skills - comfortable leading customer calls, translating
technical topics, and managing expectations
Ability to work independently and make good decisions with limited oversight
Nice to Have (But Not Required)
No single person will have all of these - they're opportunities to grow.
Experience in the fundraising or non-profit sector
West Coast / Pacific Time Zone
Experience working in startups or forward-deployed/consulting-style engineering roles
Experience with DuckDB or AWS Athena
Why You'll Love Working With Us
High-impact role: you are the key technical representative for Dataro in the US market
Blend of engineering, problem-solving, and meaningful client interaction
Work on socially impactful technology that helps charities raise more money
Modern data stack (Python, Serverless AWS, Postgres, DuckDB, S3, Athena, etc.)
Strong support from a highly capable engineering team in Sydney - with autonomy and ownership locally
We value smart engineers who use modern AI tools to accelerate development, troubleshooting, and communication
Flexible work arrangements
Benefits
Fully covered "silver" tier healthcare plan (with medical/dental/optical)
401k plan, matched up to 5%
4 weeks paid leave (with additional leave if moving house, having a baby, etc, subject to our internal policies)
10 days paid sick leave
Professional development budget for courses, mentoring or conferences and additional home office budget
Additional Paid Volunteering Leave to give back to the causes that matter to you
Working Hours
Our customers are US-based, but our engineering headquarters is in Sydney, Australia. You may need to occasionally work flexible hours (generally, later start and finish) to collaborate effectively across both time zones.
If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you. Apply here.
