Build to Protect Civilization
TRM is a blockchain intelligence company that’s on a mission to build a safer financial system for billions of people. We’re a lean, high-impact team tackling some of the world’s most critical challenges, ranging from human trafficking and financial fraud to terrorist financing. We are builders who power governments, financial institutions, and crypto companies when the clock is running and the consequences are real. This is why every TRMer is a bet on our future and has the power to change our trajectory.
The Data Platform team collaborates with an experienced group of data scientists, engineers, and product managers to build highly available and scalable data infrastructure for TRM’s products and services. As a Senior Data Engineer on the Data Platform team, you will be responsible for executing mission-critical systems and data services that analyze blockchain transaction activity at petabyte scale, and ultimately work to build a safer financial system for billions of people.
The impact you’ll have here:
- Build highly reliable data services to integrate with dozens of blockchains.
- Develop complex ETL pipelines that transform and process petabytes of structured and unstructured data in real-time.
- Design and architect intricate data models for optimal storage and retrieval to support sub-second latency for querying blockchain data.
- Oversee the deployment and monitoring of large database clusters with an unwavering focus on performance and high availability.
- Collaborate across departments, partnering with data scientists, backend engineers, and product managers to design and implement novel data models that enhance TRM’s products.
What we’re looking for:
- A Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science or a related field.
- A proven track record, with 8+ years of hands-on experience in architecting distributed system architecture, guiding projects from initial ideation through to successful production deployment.
- Exceptional programming skills in Python, as well as adeptness in SQL or SparkSQL.
- Versatility that spans the entire spectrum of data engineering in one or more of the following areas:
- In-depth experience with data stores such as ClickHouse, ElasticSearch, Postgres, Redis, and Neo4j.
- Proficiency in data pipeline and workflow orchestration tools like Airflow, DBT, Luigi, Azkaban, and Storm.
- Expertise in data processing technologies and streaming workflows including Spark, Kafka, and Flink.
- Competence in deploying and monitoring infrastructure within public cloud platforms, utilizing tools such as Docker, Terraform, Kubernetes, and Datadog.
- Proven ability in loading, querying, and transforming extensive datasets.
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.
Life at TRM
We build to protect civilization. That promise shows up in how we work every day.
TRM runs fast. Really fast. We’re a high-velocity team that expects ownership, clarity, and follow-through. People who thrive here are inspired by hard problems, experimentation, direct feedback. If it takes months elsewhere, it often ships here in days. If you are optimizing primarily for consistent work-life balance, use the interview process to pressure-test fit. We want teammates who thrive here, not just survive here.
We coach directly, assume positive intent, and play for the front of the jersey.
Leadership Principles
- 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.
Want to learn more about how we interview at TRM Labs? Check out more about our leadership principles and hiring process here.
What You’ll Do Here
This work has teeth. At TRM, your week might include:
- Driving critical investigations that can’t wait for typical business hours.
- Shipping products in days when others would schedule quarters.
- Partnering with teams across time zones to deliver insights while the story is still unfolding.
- Building new solutions from first principles when the playbook doesn’t yet exist.
- Protecting victims and customers by tracing illicit activity and disrupting criminal networks.
Join our Mission
We look for people who want their work to matter, who build with speed and rigor, and who take pride in protecting others through their craft. If you’re excited by TRM’s mission but don’t check every box, apply anyway. We hire for slope, judgment, and the will to learn fast.
Build to protect civilization. Let’s do it together.
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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