Data Platform Engineer

Branch Overview

Branch is a leading AI-based lending fintech with 50M+ downloads across India and Africa. We use alternative data to reach millions of people that are largely excluded from the financial sector.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley with operations in India, Nigeria and Kenya, Branch is a for-profit, socially conscious company built for scale and impact. Our mission-driven team—founded and led by the former CEO of Kiva.org—now spans 400+ employees globally. We're backed by investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Visa, and the IFC.

Job Overview

Branch launched in India in early 2019 and has seen rapid adoption and growth. In 2020 we are building out a full Engineering team in India to accelerate our success here. This team will work closely with our engineering team (based in the United States, Nigeria, and Kenya) to strengthen the capabilities of our existing product and build out new product lines for the company.

We are looking for a Senior Data Platform Engineer who will build and evolve the foundational data platform that powers analytics, underwriting/credit models, experimentation, and operational reporting. You will work closely with our Product, Data Science and Business teams to design and maintain multiple technologies, including our API backend, credit scoring and underwriting systems, payments integrations, and operations tools. We face numerous interesting technical challenges ranging from maintaining complex financial systems to accessing and processing creative data sources for our algorithmic credit model. This is not a pipeline-only role. You will own platform primitives: ingestion patterns, data modeling standards, orchestration, governance, reliability, and developer experience—so that downstream teams can move faster with high-quality, trusted data.

As a company, we are passionate about our customers, fearless in the face of barriers, and driven by data. As an engineering team, we value bottom-up innovation and decentralized decision-making: We believe the best ideas can come from anyone in the company, and we are working hard to create an environment where everyone feels empowered to propose solutions to the challenges we face. We are looking for individuals who thrive in a fast-moving, innovative, and customer-focused setting.

Responsibilities

• Design and build the data platform to support TB-scale datasets with strong reliability, observability, and cost efficiency.
• Build standardized ingestion frameworks (batch + near-real-time where needed), including schema evolution, backfills, and data quality controls.
• Own warehouse/lakehouse modeling patterns (dimensional, event-based, and domain-oriented models), with clear semantic layers for self-serve analytics.
• Implement data governance & security: access controls, lineage, PII handling, retention policies, and auditability.
• Partner with stakeholders to translate ambiguous needs into crisp platform roadmaps and phased delivery.
• Scaling our backend services to ever-growing levels of traffic and complexity.

Qualifiations

• 4-7 years building production-grade data/backend systems, with meaningful ownership of platform components end-to-end.
• Experience leveraging modern AI tools for efficiency and effectiveness
• You have strong knowledge of software development fundamentals, including relevant background in computer science fundamentals, distributed systems, data storage, and agile development methodologies.
• You are pragmatic and combine a strong understanding of technology and product needs to arrive at the best solution for a given problem.
• You are highly entrepreneurial and thrive in taking ownership of your own impact. You take the initiative to solve problems before they arise.
• You are an excellent collaborator & communicator. You know that startups are a team sport. You listen to others, aren't afraid to speak your mind and always try to ask the right questions.
• You are excited by the prospect of working in a distributed team and company, working with teammates from all over the world.
• Experience in designing, building, and maintaining scalable data architectures that integrate disparate data sources.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, data storage, and data modeling
• Hands-on experience with a modern stack similar to dbt + orchestration (Airflow/Dagster) + cloud warehouse (Snowflake/BigQuery/Redshift).
• Strong programming ability in Python or Go, plus SQL fluency.

Benefits of Joining

• Mission-driven, fast-paced and entrepreneurial environment
• Competitive salary and equity package
• A collaborative and flat company culture
• Remote first, with the option to work in-person occasionally
• Fully-paid Group Medical Insurance and Personal Accidental Insurance
• Unlimited paid time off including personal leave, bereavement leave, sick leave
• Fully paid parental leave - 6 months maternity leave and 3 months paternity leave
• Monthly WFH stipend alongside a one time home office set-up budget
• $500 Annual professional development budget
• Team meals and social events- Virtual and In-person

Branch International is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The company does not and will not discriminate in employment on any basis prohibited by applicable law. We're looking for more than just qualifications -- so if you're unsure that you meet the criteria, please do not hesitate to apply!