As a Senior Staff Data Engineer at Warner Bros., you will join a high-impact team responsible for designing and delivering data pipelines that process billions of ad events daily across the company’s global ecosystem. Your role involves setting technical standards for distributed data engineering, modernizing legacy workflows into modular cloud-native systems, and ensuring mission-critical data is delivered reliably, securely, and cost-efficiently. You will design and maintain ingestion, ETL, and activation pipelines supporting real-time and batch processing of multi-billion event datasets while optimizing data workflows for latency, reliability, and scalability in cloud-native environments. Additionally, you will modernize legacy ad-tech systems into lakehouse-based architectures using Iceberg, Delta, Hudi, and embed observability frameworks to reduce technical debt. You will also partner with Data Science teams to operationalize ML models and ensure low-latency, privacy-compliant data delivery into various platforms. This role requires extensive experience in AWS/GCP/Azure, distributed compute (Spark, Flink, Presto), streaming systems (Kafka, Kinesis), and operational excellence practices including CI/CD and observability frameworks.
Design and maintain high-scale data pipelines for real-time and batch processing of multi-billion event datasets.
Optimize cloud-native data workflows for latency, reliability, and scalability.
Modernize legacy ad-tech systems into open lakehouse architectures using Iceberg, Delta, Hudi formats.
Partner with Data Science to operationalize ML models for low-latency, privacy-compliant downstream data delivery.
Mentor junior engineers in distributed systems, streaming, and big data engineering best practices.
What we're looking for
12+ years of experience in designing and operating enterprise-scale data platforms with high-throughput pipelines.
Expertise in AWS/GCP/Azure, open table formats (Iceberg, Delta, Hudi), and distributed compute frameworks like Spark, Flink, Presto.
Deep knowledge of streaming technologies such as Kafka, Kinesis, or Pub/Sub for real-time data processing.
Hands-on experience with CI/CD, automation, observability, and governance frameworks to ensure operational excellence.
Proven ability to modernize legacy ad-tech systems into lakehouse-based architectures for unified analytics and monetization.
Strong mentorship skills and the ability to elevate engineering standards across global teams.
Market check
Salary context
This
$161,070–$299,130
range sits above
77%
of similar postings on FindRole.
Peer median band
$140,000–$220,100
Median floor and ceiling across peers.
Typical midpoint (25–75%)
$142,400–$225,125
Middle half of comparable postings.
Based on 239 comparable postings.*
* 240 is the maximum number of comparable postings sampled.
Employer
About Warner Bros. Discovery
Warner Bros. Discovery is a global media and entertainment company operating a broad portfolio of iconic content and brands including Warner Bros. film studio, HBO, CNN, Discovery Channel, and Max streaming service. Industry: Media & Entertainment
Warner Bros. Discovery currently has
54 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$121,100–$224,900
across 37 roles with salary data.