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TRM Labs is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to join the Data Platform Serving team, working on the StarRocks-backed serving layer that powers government cloud investigations. This is a hands-on distributed systems role in one of TRM's most operationally demanding environments: a regulated, high-availability government cloud deployment.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own performance tuning on the StarRocks serving layer, using AI-assisted query profiling to identify and fix slow query patterns before they impact customers.
- Build and harden data pipelines feeding government cloud investigations, leveraging AI code review workflows to ship reliable changes in a high-compliance environment.
- Reduce single-point-of-failure risk by becoming the second engineer capable of independently operating and troubleshooting the serving layer, improving incident response times.
- Use AI-assisted debugging and log analysis to triage production issues in a regulated environment, converting multi-hour investigations into rapid root-cause fixes.
Required qualifications:
- U.S. citizenship (required for government cloud data access).
- Hands-on experience operating distributed OLAP or serving-layer systems (StarRocks, Trino, ClickHouse, or similar), including query tuning and performance optimization at scale.
- Proven experience owning data pipeline reliability and incident response.
- Comfort using AI tools (Claude, Cursor, or similar) to accelerate debugging, code review, and documentation.
- Independent ownership mindset: ability to ramp quickly on unfamiliar production infrastructure using AI-assisted research, and willingness to take on-call responsibility with minimal oversight.
The Data Platform Serving team owns the layer that transforms TRM's data into fast, reliable answers for downstream teams and systems. The team is distributed but communicates constantly via Slack and async documentation, with a bias toward direct, evidence-based technical discussion. Decisions are made close to the data, with operating engineers making architecture calls and tradeoffs. Close collaboration with Forward Deployed Engineering and Product teams ensures the government cloud environment stays at parity with the commercial platform.
TRM operates at high velocity with a high-ownership culture. The work sits at the intersection of AI, national security, and crime-fighting, with complex problems and real stakes. The environment rewards urgency, adaptability, and outcomes, requiring comfort with ambiguity and changing priorities.
