Senior Data Engineer – Governance & Security

About the Senior Data Engineer– Governance & Security at Headspace:

At Headspace, our mission is to transform mental healthcare to improve the health and happiness of the world. Core to this mission is our ability to responsibly and ethically leverage data to provide personalized care to each of our members, meeting them where they are on the mental health continuum. We are seeking experienced engineers to help us turn great data into trusted, compliant, and secure data. As our Senior Data Engineer specializing in Governance & Security, you will harden our cloud data platform, embed privacy-by-design practices into every pipeline, and act as the technical bridge between Data Engineering, InfoSec, and Compliance teams.

Location: This is a hybrid role located in our San Francisco office, working 3 days per week from the office. 

What you will do:

• Design and Build Scalable Data Infrastructure: Architect and implement robust data pipelines to ingest, aggregate, and index diverse data sources into the organization’s data lake.
• Develop a World-Class Data Warehousing Platform: Lead the creation of a secure, compliant, and privacy-focused data warehousing solution tailored to meet the healthcare industry’s stringent requirements.
• Enable Business Insights: Partner with the data analytics team to deliver a data platform that supports accurate, actionable reporting on key business metrics.
• Empower Data Science and Machine Learning Innovation: Collaborate with the data science and machine learning teams to build tools and capabilities that foster rapid experimentation and innovation.
• Foster a Data-Driven Culture: Mentor and coach data engineers while championing a culture that values data as a strategic asset across the organization.

What you will bring:

• 7+ years building production data pipelines on modern cloud stacks (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Expert-level Python and PySpark; comfortable tuning Spark 3.x jobs.
• Strong Pyspark experience (dataframe API) and understanding of internal architecture and optimization techniques. 
• Direct ownership of data-governance initiatives (catalogs, lineage, quality, stewardship).
• Deep understanding of encryption at rest/in transit, key management, tokenization, hashing, and masking strategies.
• Proven track record mapping GDPR / CCPA / HIPAA controls to data-platform implementations.
• Demonstrated expertise in architectural patterns for building high-volume real-time and batch ETL pipelines.
• Hands-on experience with one or more security-layer tools (e.g., Apache Ranger, Unity Catalog, Lake Formation).
• Strong SQL skills across columnar and relational engines (Databricks SQL, Postgres).
• Ability to articulate trade-offs between security, performance, and cost to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Exceptional oral and written communication abilities, facilitating effective cross-functional collaboration.
• A history of making decisions that positively influence team dynamics and organizational culture.
• BA/BS degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience automating compliance evidence collection with Terraform, Policy-as-Code, or OPA.
• Familiarity with data-quality/testing frameworks (Great Expectations, Soda, dbt tests).
• Event-stream processing with Kafka/Kinesis and Schema Registry governance.
  Incident-response or blue-team background (logs, SIEM, forensics).

Pay & Benefits:

The anticipated new hire base salary range for this full-time position is $122,400-$195,500 + equity + benefits. 

Our salary ranges are based on the job, level, and location, and reflect the lowest to highest geographic markets where we are hiring for this role within the United States. Within this range, individual compensation is determined by a candidate’s location as well as a range of factors including but not limited to: unique relevant experience, job-related skills, and education or training. 
Your recruiter will provide more details on the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process.

At Headspace, base salary is but one component of our Total Rewards package. We’re proud of our robust package inclusive of: base salary, stock awards, comprehensive healthcare coverage, monthly wellness stipend, retirement savings match, lifetime Headspace membership, generous parental leave, and more. Additional details about our Total Rewards package will be