Lead Software Engineer

Career Area:

Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other.  We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

Role Definition
We’re looking for a hands‑on Lead Software Engineer with exceptional SQL expertise and deep DBA experience to own and evolve our data platform. You will design scalable data models, optimize and secure mission-critical databases, and lead high-impact engineering initiatives that power analytics, personalization, and campaign measurement across our marketing technology stack. You’ll partner closely with product, marketing analytics, and data science to ship reliable, high‑quality data capabilities.
What You’ll Do

Design, implement, and maintain high‑availability OLTP/OLAP databases; plan capacity, perform upgrades/patching, automate backups & disaster recovery (RPO/RTO ownership).
Build and optimize complex SQL (CTEs, window functions, materialized views) for ETL/ELT, reporting, and application services; champion query performance and cost efficiency.
Define and maintain conceptual, logical, and physical data models (3NF/BCNF, star/snowflake schemas, SCDs); establish and enforce data modeling standards and naming conventions.
Diagnose and resolve bottlenecks (indexing, partitioning, statistics, plan regression); implement observability (query performance baselines, slow query analysis, I/O/latency dashboards).
Implement RBAC/ABAC, data masking, encryption at rest/in transit, auditing, and compliance guardrails; drive data quality SLAs and lineage.
Mentor engineers, run design reviews, set best practices (schema evolution, migration strategies, code reviews), and drive technical roadmaps.
Partner with Marketing, MarTech, and Analytics teams to translate business needs (attribution, segmentation, lifecycle campaigns, LTV/ROI analysis) into robust data solutions.
Build and maintain CI/CD for database changes (migration pipelines), schema validation, and environment parity; codify runbooks/SOPs.
Lead root‑cause analysis and remediation for data incidents; champion preventive controls.

Minimum Qualifications

10+ years in software engineering or data engineering roles, with 5+ years focused on databases as a DBA/Database Engineer/Lead.
Expert SQL skills with a track record of performance tuning on at least one major platform (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery).
DBA depth: Indexing/partitioning strategies, vacuum/analyze/auto‑stats, query plans, replication, backup/restore, PITR, high availability (e.g., replication, clustering), and DR planning.
Data modeling mastery: Strong command of normalization/denormalization tradeoffs, dimensional modeling (Kimball/Inmon), SCD types, surrogate keys, and evolution strategies.
Data quality & governance: Experience with validation frameworks, constraints, lineage, and documentation; comfortable defining SLAs/SLOs for data.
Security/compliance: Practical experience implementing least privilege, encryption, auditing, and compliance-aware design.
Leadership: Proven experience mentoring engineers and leading technical initiatives end‑to‑end.

Nice to Have

Python for data tooling, ETL/ELT jobs, data validation, and automation (e.g., Pandas, SQLAlchemy, dbt adapters, Airflow operators).
AWS (e.g., RDS/Aurora, Redshift, S3, Glue, Lambda, EMR, IAM, KMS, Secrets Manager) and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform/CloudFormation).
Marketing/MarTech domain: Familiarity with campaign orchestration, CDP/DMP, attribution/measurement, clickstream, consent/PII handling, and omni‑channel data integration (ad platforms, email/SMS, web/app analytics).
Experience with streaming and CDC (Kafka/Kinesis, Debezium), dbt, Airflow, Great Expectations, Looker/Power BI/Tableau, or feature stores.
Exposure to privacy and data regulations (GDPR/CCPA/LGPD) and consent management.

This Job Description is intended as a general guide to the job duties for this position and is intended for the purpose of establishing the specific salary grade.  It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as an exhaustive summary of all responsibilities, duties and effort required of employees assigned to this job.  At the discretion of management, this description may be changed at any time to address the evolving needs of the organization.  It is expressly not intended to be a comprehensive list of “essential job functions” as that term is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Posting Dates:

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  Qualified applicants of any age are encouraged to apply

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