Staff Software Engineer, Data Incrementalization

Job description

TRM Labs is a blockchain intelligence company committed to fighting crime and creating a safer world. By leveraging blockchain data, threat intelligence, and advanced analytics, our products empower governments, financial institutions, and crypto businesses to combat illicit activity and global security threats. At TRM, you’ll join a mission-driven, fast-paced team made up of experts in law enforcement, data science, engineering, and financial intelligence, tackling complex global challenges daily. Whether analyzing blockchain data, developing cutting-edge tools, or collaborating with global organizations, you’ll have the opportunity to make a meaningful and lasting impact.

The Data Platform team sits at the core of TRM’s products, working with data scientists, engineers, and product managers to build scalable and reliable data infrastructure. As a Senior or Staff Engineer, you will focus on data incrementalization — the process of efficiently processing, updating, and synchronizing massive datasets as new information becomes available. This approach ensures that TRM’s blockchain intelligence remains timely, accurate, and actionable at petabyte-scale. You will design and build internal tools that empower Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers to transform raw blockchain data into real-time blockchain intelligence, driving innovation and impact across TRM’s product offerings.

The impact you’ll have here:

• Design and build our Cloud Data Warehouse with a focus on incremental updates to improve cost efficiency and scalability.
• Research innovative methods to incrementally optimize data processing, storage, and retrieval to support efficient data analytics and insights.
• Develop and maintain ETL pipelines that transform and incrementally process petabytes of structured and unstructured data to enable data-driven decision-making.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to design and implement new data models and tools focused on accelerating innovation through incremental updates.
• Continuously monitor and optimize the Data Platform’s performance, focusing on enhancing cost efficiency, scalability, and reliability.

What we’re looking for:

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in building distributed system architecture, with a particular focus on incremental updates from inception to production.
• Strong programming skills in Python and SQL.
• Deep technical expertise in advanced data structures and algorithms for incremental updating of data stores (e.g., Graphs, Trees, Hash Maps).
• Comprehensive knowledge across all facets of data engineering, including:
  • Implementing and managing incremental updates in data stores like BigQuery, Snowflake, RedShift, Athena, Hive, and Postgres.
  • Orchestrating data pipelines and workflows focused on incremental processing using tools such as Airflow, DBT, Luigi, Azkaban, and Storm.
  • Developing and optimizing data processing technologies and streaming workflows for incremental updates (e.g., Spark, Kafka, Flink).
  • Deploying and monitoring scalable, incremental update systems in public cloud environments (e.g., Docker, Terraform, Kubernetes, Datadog).
  • Expertise in loading, querying, and transforming large datasets with a focus on efficiency and incremental growth.

About the Team:

• The Data Platform team is the funnel between all of TRM’s data world and product world. We care about all layers of stack including petabyte of data stores, pipelines, and processes.
• We have quite a big scope as a the team with new and exciting projects every quarter. As a result, we collaborate across the board with most teams at TRM.
• We believe in async communication and are also not afraid to jump on a quick huddle if that helps to move things faster. We are both scrappy when the situation demands and also process-oriented when we need to achieve our OKRs.
• We are always looking for people who can elevate the quality our tech and our execution. If you enjoy a remote-first and async friendly environment to achieve efficacy and efficiency at petabyte scale, our team could be a great pick for you!
• Team members are based in the US across almost all timezones! Our on-call tends to be in EST/PST shift, whatever suits you the best.
• We do try to reserve some overlap in the day for meetings. Our north star - no IC spends more than 3-4 hours/week in meetings.

Learn about TRM Speed in this position:

• Build scalable engines to optimize routine scaling and maintenance tasks like create self-serve automation for creating new pgbouncer, scaling disks, scaling/updating of clusters, etc.
• Enable tasks to be faster next time and reducing dependency on a single person.
• Identify ways to compress timelines using ⁸⁰⁄₂₀ principle. For instance, what does it take to be operational in a new environment? Identify the must have and nice to haves that are need to deploy our stack to be fully operation. Focus on must haves first to get us operational and then use future milestones to harden for customer readiness. We think in terms of weeks and not months.
• Identify first version, a.k.a., “ skateboards” for projects. For instance, build an observability dashboard within a week. Gather feedback from stakeholders after to identify more needs or bells and whistles to add to the dashboard.

About TRM’s Engineering Levels:

Engineer: Responsible for helping to define project milestones and executing small decision decisions independently with the appropriate tradeoffs between simplicity, readability, and performance. Provides mentorship to junior engineers, and enhances operational excellence through tech debt reduction and knowledge sharing.

Senior Engineer: Successfully designs and documents system improvements and features for an OKR/project from the ground up. Consistently delivers efficient and reusable systems, optimizes team throughput with appropriate tradeoffs, mentors team members, and enhances cross-team collaboration through documentation and knowledge sharing.

Staff Engineer: Drives scoping and execution of one or more OKRs/projects that impact multiple teams. Partners with stakeholders to set the team vision and technical roadmaps for one or more products. Is a role model and mentor to the entire engineering organization. Ensures system health and quality with operational reviews, testing strategies, and monitoring rigor.

The following represents the expected range of compensation for this role:

• Individual pay is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. The compensation details listed in this posting reflect the US base salary only.
• The estimated base salary range for this role is $230,000 - $255,000.
• Additionally, this role may be eligible to participate in TRM’s equity plan.
• Please note – we factor in the different costs for geographies outside the United States.

Life at TRM Labs

Leadership Principles

Our LPs are foundational elements of our strategy, guiding how we make decisions, how we treat each other, and how we behave day-to-day.

• Impact-Oriented Trailblazer – We put customers first, driving for speed, focus, and adaptability.
• Master Craftsperson – We prioritize speed, high standards, and distributed ownership.
• Inspiring Colleague – We value humility, candor, and a one-team mindset.

Accelerate your Career

Join a mission-driven team of industry leaders and make a real-world impact—disrupting terrorist networks, recovering stolen funds, and more. At TRM, you will:

• Work alongside top experts and learn every day.
• Embrace a growth mindset with development opportunities tailored to your role.
• Take on high-impact challenges in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.
• Thrive in a culture of coaching, where feedback is fast, direct, and built to help you level up. We expect everyone to both give and receive feedback as part of how we get better—together.

What to Expect at TRM

TRM moves fast— really fast. We know a lot of startups say that, but we mean it. We operate with urgency, ownership, and high standards. As a result, you’ll be joining a team that’s highly engaged, mission-driven, and constantly evolving.

To support this intensity, we’re also intentional about rest and recharge. We offer generous benefits, including PTO, Holidays, and Parental Leave for full time employees.

That said, TRM may not be the right fit for everyone. If you’re optimizing for work life balance, we encourage you to:

• Ask your interviewers how they personally approach balance within their teams, and
• Reflect on whether this is the right season in your life to join a high-velocity environment.
• Be honest with yourself about what energizes you—and what drains you

We’re upfront about this because we want every new team member to thrive—not just survive.

Thrive as a Global Team

As a remote-first company, TRM Labs is built for global collaboration.

• We cultivate a strong remote culture through clear communication, thorough documentation, and meaningful relationships.
• We invest in offsites, regional meetups, virtual coffee chats, and onboarding buddies to foster collaboration.
• By prioritizing trust and belonging, we harness the strengths of a global team while staying aligned with our mission and values.

Join our mission!

We’re looking for team members who thrive in fast-paced, high-impact environments and love building from the ground up. TRM is remote-first, with an exceptionally talented global team. If you enjoy solving tough problems and seeing your work make a difference for billions of people, we want you here. Don’t worry if your experience doesn’t perfectly match a job description— we value passion, problem-solving, and unique career paths. If you’re excited about TRM’s mission, we want to hear from you.

Recruitment agencies

TRM Labs does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to TRM employees. TRM Labs is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes and will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company without a signed agreement.

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