Staff Data Engineer, Unity Ads

TLDR

Architect and build foundational data infrastructure that powers analytics and ML across Unity's ads organization, processing petabytes of data daily.

The opportunity
Join Ads Supply Engineering as our first dedicated Staff Data Engineer, where you'll architect and build the foundational data infrastructure that powers analytics and ML across our ads organization. You'll work at the intersection of high-scale distributed systems and critical business impact—processing petabytes of data daily from event streams that directly drive company revenue.

Short-term success (90 days): Deliver 5 production-ready enriched data pipelines, establishing reliable data contracts between our product teams and downstream consumers.

Long-term success: Become the technical authority for ads product data across the organization, defining standards and patterns that scale across multiple product teams, and potentially growing this into a dedicated team.

Your impact: You'll transform how SDK, Ads-Exchange, and Ads Trust & Safety teams deliver data—upgrading to state of the art standardized streaming pipelines. Your work will directly enable better analytics, ML models, and ultimately better ads products.

Why this role: This is a blend of building new data infrastructure and evolving existing streams, with the opportunity to shape the data strategy for ads supply. You'll have direct access to leadership and the autonomy to establish the technical and strategic direction for producer-side data—a voice that's currently missing in the organization.

What you'll be doing

  • Design and build real-time streaming data pipelines that transform raw product events into enriched, standardized datasets processing petabytes of data daily
  • Define data contracts and schemas that unify disparate product signals (e.g., harmonizing how different products define "clicks" or mapping bundle IDs to internal game IDs)
  • Collaborate with SDK, Ads-Exchange, and Ads Trust & Safety teams to understand their data semantics and translate product requirements into scalable pipeline architectures
  • Establish best practices and patterns for streaming data transformations that can scale across the ads organization, leveraging technologies like Kafka, GCP, and NoSQL databases
  • Partner with the Data Platform team to ensure smooth handoffs to downstream reporting and aggregation pipelines while maintaining reliability and SLAs through on-call support

What we're looking for

  • Proven experience in building and maintaining standardized, reliable data enrichment pipelines.
  • Expertise in establishing data contracts and enrichment patterns.
  • Strong understanding of streaming architectures and data modeling.
  • Proficiency with technologies such as Kafka and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
  • Ability to serve as a technical and strategic voice for data, bridging the needs of data producers and consumers.

Additional information

  • Relocation support is not available for this position
  • Work visa/immigration sponsorship is not available for this position

Benefits
At Unity, we want our team members to thrive. We offer a wide range of benefits designed to support well-being and work-life balance.

Please note: Benefits eligibility, specific offerings, and coverage vary based on the country and employment status.

While specific benefits vary, here are some of the ways we strive to take care of our eligible team members globally: Comprehensive health, life, and disability insurance | Commute subsidy | Employee stock ownership | Competitive retirement/pension plans | Generous vacation and personal days | Support for new parents through leave and family-care programs | Office food snacks | Mental Health and Wellbeing programs and support | Employee Resource Groups | Global Employee Assistance Program | Training and development programs | Volunteering and donation matching program

Life at Unity
Unity [NYSE: U] is the world’s leading game engine, powering play for more than 3 billion consumers each month. The top mobile games in the world, the most played PC indie titles, the most innovative console games, and virtually all of the top XR and Web Games are developed, deployed, and grown in Unity. Unity also enables teams across industries like automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare to design, simulate, and collaborate in 3D — closing the gap between ideas and reality. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.

Unity is a proud equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment and celebrate our employees across age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law. Our differences are strengths that enable us to support the growing and evolving needs of our customers, partners, and collaborators. If you have a disability that means there are preparations or accommodations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please fill out this form to let us know.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

This position requires the incumbent to have a sufficient knowledge of English to have professional verbal and written exchanges in this language since the performance of the duties related to this position requires frequent and regular communication with colleagues and partners located worldwide and whose common language is English.

Headhunters and recruitment agencies may not submit resumes/CVs through this Web site or directly to managers. Unity does not accept unsolicited headhunter and agency resumes. Unity will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company that does not have a signed agreement with Unity.

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*Note: Certain locations require a good faith disclosure of the base salary range for the role. The actual salary for the successful candidate may differ based on location, experience, and other job-related factors.

Gross pay salary
$200,000$290,000 USD

Unity Technologies provides a comprehensive platform for creating and growing games and interactive experiences. It's designed for a diverse range of creators, including game developers, architects, and filmmakers, enabling them to turn their visions into reality across multiple platforms.

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Salary
$200,000 – $290,000 per year
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