Plaid
Staff Software Engineer - Data Governance
$208K–$274K
San Francisco HQ +1 · Hybrid · Staff · Full-time · Posted Aug 20, 2026
- Location
- San Francisco HQ
Seattle Office - Experience
- Typically 8+ years.
About the job
Sets technical direction and builds auditable platform controls to govern data flows, including deletion, permitted use, and data cataloging across Plaid.
What you'll do
- Own the data-governance platform architecture and lead multi-quarter, cross-team initiatives.
- Set engineering standards for reliability, correctness, and auditability through design reviews.
- Partner with Legal, Privacy, Security, and engineering teams; mentor engineers and support adoption of governance controls.
What they ask for
- Extensive experience building and operating backend distributed systems at scale, in a language like Go, Java, or similar.
- Track record leading complex system design and cross-team technical initiatives.
- Strong fundamentals in data stores, consistency, and reliability, including reasoning about correctness and failure modes.
- Ability to turn ambiguous requirements into technical plans, align stakeholders, and communicate effectively with non-engineering partners.
Nice to have
- Experience with data privacy, governance, or compliance systems, such as GDPR/CCPA deletion, data-use/consent enforcement, cataloging/classification, or auditing.
Pay
$207.6K – $273.6K USD base salary
Tools
Go, Java
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative