About The Team
Sparrow is a consumer lending startup born with a mission to empower the underserved and overlooked. We have designed a revolutionary credit card, meticulously crafted to help guide our customers on a journey to financial freedom.
The Engineering team designs, builds, and maintains scalable data infrastructure, pipelines, lakehouse systems, and reporting tools that drive data-informed decision-making. We manage the full data lifecycle—from ingestion to transformation and delivery—leveraging modern technologies to deliver reliable, high-quality solutions that support Sparrow’s rapid growth.
About The Role
We are seeking a motivated entry-level Data Engineer to join our team and help build reliable, scalable data infrastructure and pipelines. In this role, you'll support the delivery of data-driven insights by working closely with senior engineers and cross-functional teams. This position is ideal for someone early in their career who is eager to learn and grow while contributing to impactful data systems.
This person will report to a Principal Data Engineer.
In This Role, You Will:
- Assist in designing, building, and maintaining scalable data pipelines to extract, transform, and load data from various sources such as relational databases, REST APIs, and event streams, using AWS and open-source tools.
- Contribute to implementing data quality checks, governance practices, and security controls to ensure data integrity.
- Learn and apply modern data engineering technologies to support scalable and reliable data solutions.
- Collaborate with senior engineers to optimize data storage and processing for performance and cost-efficiency.
- Work closely with data scientists and analysts to support data modeling, reporting, and analytics needs.
- Stay up to date with emerging tools and practices in data engineering, and contribute ideas to improve the data infrastructure.
- Participate in a fast-paced startup environment, taking on a range of projects and responsibilities beyond core data engineering as needed.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field.
- 0–2 years of experience in data engineering or relevant internship/project work.
- Familiarity with AWS and data processing technologies through coursework or hands-on experience.
- Experience with version control systems (e.g., Git) and agile development workflows.
- Understanding of data governance, privacy, and security concepts.
- Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
Strong Experience in:
- SQL and Python (or PySpark) for data transformation and analysis.
- Familiarity with open-source data formats such as Delta Lake.
- Exposure to streaming technologies like Kafka (academic or project-based experience acceptable).
- Hands-on experience or strong familiarity with AWS services such as S3, Redshift, Glue, or EMR.
- Understanding of data modeling concepts and warehousing techniques to support analytics and data science workflows.
Nice to Have:
- Exposure to deploying machine learning models or supporting ML pipelines.
- Familiarity with DevOps tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.
- Experience with data orchestration tools like Airflow, Mage, or similar.
- Interest or background in the credit card or consumer finance industry.
We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.
Compensation, Benefits, and Perks
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with a 100% company-paid employee-only option
- Generous paid time off and 14 company holidays per year
- $50 per month Wellness Stipend - to use in any way that helps you thrive!
- Paid parental leave
- 401(k) Plan with 4% matching
- Stock options
More About Sparrow
At Sparrow, we believe that we can grant credit to the underserved and overlooked better than any company that exists today. We believe that we can have a significant impact on society by reducing the financial burden of having less than perfect credit. And we believe in fostering a workplace culture that embodies purpose, community, freedom, and transparency. At Sparrow, we know we are only as great as the people we hire, and without them we will never achieve our collective aspirations. Come join us!
