Data Engineer

Life & Culture

At ELMO you will be joining an epic team with the opportunity to make a big impact. We foster an authentic, collaborative, fun working environment and being an ELMOnian means you're part of an amazing team that will push you to grow, support you with challenges and allow you to shine. Some of our benefits include:

• Paid Parental leave - 12 weeks primary, 6 weeks secondary
• Birthday leave, YOU day each year, as well as connecting people leave (up to 2weeks working from anywhere)
• Inhouse Learning and Development initiatives
• ELMO Social and Diversity clubs
• Mental Health/EAP programs
• Flare Benefits (great discounts, novated leasing, salary sacrifice)

Our values:

• Reimagine What's Possible- We believe innovation is human at its core. By staying open, fearless, and adaptive, we continuously push boundaries - while keeping people at the heart of everything we do.
• Obsess over Customers- Everything we do is designed to positively impact our customers.
• Help Others Thrive- Be they colleagues, communities or customers, we champion ways to help others thrive.
• Be Fearlessly Optimistic- We bring unwavering positivity to any challenge, as we know it will drive meaningful change.

Job Description

About the Role:

You're a hands-on database expert with deep experience across PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Microsoft SQL Server on AWS RDS. You know how to tune a slow query, design schemas that scale, and recover gracefully when a migration goes wrong at 2 a.m. But you've also evolved beyond the traditional DBA role, embracing the modern data stack and data engineering practices.

Today, you're building data pipelines, working with Snowflake and dbt, writing Python, and leveraging AI-powered tooling to accelerate delivery and improve outcomes.

That's exactly the profile we're looking for.

At ELMO, you'll be responsible for the reliability, performance, and evolution of our Snowflake data platform, dbt transformation layers, AWS RDS databases, and batch data pipelines. Together, these systems underpin a high-scale, multi-tenant SaaS platform serving more than one million users across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

As part of ELMO's AI-Native engineering model, you'll partner with AI agents-including Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and multi-agent workflows-to deliver complex data initiatives such as schema migrations, pipeline modernisation, and data quality framework development. While AI accelerates execution, your deep database expertise will remain critical in identifying performance bottlenecks, security risks, and data integrity issues that automated tools alone can't reliably detect.

What you will be doing

• Own pipeline code, DBT models, and SQL transformations end-to-end; uphold team-level quality standards and act as first reviewer for junior PRs
• Direct AI agents through complex, multi-step data engineering tasks; contribute effective prompts and orchestration patterns to the shared team prompt library
• Evaluate AI-generated pipeline code, SQL, and dbt models for correctness, performance, security, and architectural alignment before merge
• Build and maintain high-performance Snowflake pipelines - including schema design, RLS policies, query optimisation, cost management, and warehouse sizing
• Design, develop, and maintain dbt models, tests, macros, and packages at production scale
• Administer and tune AWS RDS databases across Postgres, MySQL, and MS SQL - schema design, performance tuning, query optimisation, index management, and backup/recovery
• Build and maintain AWS-based data infrastructure using S3, Glue, Lambda, Kinesis, and EMR; apply IaC practices (Terraform or CloudFormation)
• Manage workflow orchestration using Apache Airflow or equivalent, including retry strategies, observability, and production-grade reliability patterns
• Design and implement automated data quality monitoring and validation frameworks; own data quality incidents from detection through to resolution and postmortem
• Own ISO 27001 evidence collection for team pipelines and data assets; implement RLS, masking, and data access controls for sensitive HR and employee data
• Mentor junior Data Engineers through PR review, pairing, and structured feedback

Desired Skills and Experience

Must haves:

• Strong AWS RDS DBA experience across Postgres (Aurora), MySQL (Aurora), and MS SQL - schema design, query optimisation, index management, performance tuning, and backup/recovery
• Solid data engineering experience, ideally with a DBA background who has expanded into the modern data stack (Snowflake, dbt, Python)
• Deep, hands on Snowflake experience - query optimisation, cost management, RLS, schema design, and performance tuning
• Proficient with DBT (models, tests, macros, packages) at production scale
• Strong Python scripting and advanced SQL for transformations, automation, and tooling
• Hands on with AWS data services (S3, Glue, Lambda, Kinesis, EMR) and IaC (Terraform or CloudFormation)
• Demonstrated experience building tools or automations using AI - Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, multi step prompting, or multi agent orchestration
• Strong workflow orchestration experience (Apache Airflow, AWS Step Functions, or equivalent)
• Familiarity with ISO 27001 data security obligations and compliance aware data engineering practices
• Strong written and verbal communication; comfortable engaging with non technical stakeholders across Analytics, Product, and the business

Nice to have:

• Experience with Apache Kafka and Apache Flink - consumer/producer patterns, partition strategies, CDC, and schema evolution
• Exposure to AI/ML data pipelines - embedding generation, vector store ingestion, Bedrock knowledge base preparation, or training data management
• Industry certification: SnowPro Advanced: Data Engineer, AWS Data Analytics Specialty, dbt Advanced, or equivalent

Apply now and be part of the team shaping the future of work at ELMO!

ELMO Software Pty Ltd is an equal opportunity employer, and we encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds to join our team. We are also committed to advancing reconciliation at ELMO through our Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). At ELMO, we are passionate about empowering HR with responsible, secure and safe AI, aiming to be among the first in Australia and New Zealand to achieve ISO 42001:2023 certification. Handling sensitive employee data necessitates strict adherence to our ISO 27001:2022 Certified security policies, making data privacy and security paramount in every role.