Software Engineer - Data team

Description

About Us_
// At Masabi, we’re driving the fare payment revolution, powering the journeys of millions all over the world. We build fare collection platforms that allow riders to seamlessly buy and present tickets for public transport either on their mobile phones, from a ticket machine, or even by tapping their bank card to travel.

Our Justride platform is used in over 250 locations globally, including some of the largest cities in the world. With our industry-first mobile ticketing SDK, we’ve partnered with large players in the transport space, including Uber, Moovit and Transit.

Your own journey is important to us too. Choosing a role here means joining a network of innovators from all walks of life; a group of passionate individuals who consistently deliver. Here, you’ll find the tools you need to build the career you want. Whether you’re taking the direct route or trying a new path, we’ll support you no matter what.

The Role_

At Masabi, we’re powering the journeys of millions by making public transport payments simple, accessible and seamless.

We’re building our next data platform. Our ticketing, validation and payment services already publish events to Kafka, and over the coming year we’re turning those events into a governed lakehouse on AWS that transit agencies, internal teams and our APIs can query. It will replace our current Elasticsearch-based data store.

You’ll join a small Data team of software engineers who design as well as build: choosing approaches, measuring performance and cost, and writing your choices down. You’ll bring software engineering practices to a data platform, from well-tested services and CI checks to infrastructure as code. What you build will shape how agencies and our own teams use their data.

Location_

This is a fully remote contract role for people based in Romania

Responsibilities_

• Build and run the services that ingest Kafka topics into Apache Iceberg tables on AWS, including partitioning, compaction, deduplication and backfills of historical data

• Write clean, well-tested, maintainable code, using AI tools with good judgement, and contribute to code reviews and shared engineering standards

• Work with the teams that produce the data on data contracts, including Avro schemas with field-level classification, schema evolution rules and the CI checks that enforce them

• Build privacy and access into the platform: personal data erasure, retention and per-agency access control

• Build the query layer behind our customer-facing data API, and give others access through Athena

• Evaluate technical approaches, measure performance and cost, and document the choices you make

• Migrate existing dashboards, reports and finance extracts onto the new platform

• Later, build the curated layer of shared metrics and business-ready datasets for BI tools and an AI analytics assistant

Requirements

What you’ll need:

• Solid software engineering fundamentals: you write production code, test it properly and work comfortably with Git and CI pipelines

• AI fluency: you use AI coding tools daily and check their output carefully, especially for SQL, schema changes and anything that affects data correctness

• Good SQL and some experience building or running data pipelines, so you’re comfortable working with data from source to query

• A solid grasp of data modelling

• Clear, confident communication in written and spoken English

What will help you thrive:

• Experience running a lakehouse or data warehouse in production

• Production experience with Kafka and schemas (ideally Avro)

• Experience handling personal data, including privacy, retention and access control

• You’re comfortable making design decisions and explaining the trade-offs, in writing as well as in conversation

• You enjoy working closely with the teams that produce the data, not just the ones that use it

• Nice to have: JVM experience (Kotlin or Java), Apache Iceberg, Terraform, AWS Lake Formation, DuckDB

We don’t expect you to tick every box. What matters most is curiosity, a willingness to learn, and the motivation to take ownership of your work.

What You’ll Learn_

• How to build a data platform from the ground up for a global fare payment platform used by transit agencies and millions of riders

• Hands-on experience with a modern lakehouse stack: Iceberg, Athena, Lake Formation, Kafka and Avro on AWS

• How to shape technical direction in a small team, where your design choices and write-ups set the standard

• How to use AI tools well in real engineering work, in a team that encourages them and cares about getting the results right

Our Stack_

• Java or Kotlin

• AWS: S3, Apache Iceberg, Athena, Lake Formation (and potentially more query engines)

• PostgreSQL, DuckDB

• Kafka with Avro

• Terraform, GitLab CI

Careers at Masabi are for people going places - driven by a mission to make transit fair and accessible for all.

// We are a network of innovators from all walks of life, passionate about making a difference. At Masabi, we operate with openness and trust, creating an environment where everyone feels empowered to bring their whole, authentic selves to work.

Whoever you are, just be yourself.
// We welcome applications from underrepresented groups, including disabled and neurodivergent people, and can make adjustments at any stage of the process. You’re also welcome to share your pronouns whenever you feel comfortable. Together, we simplify journeys, remove barriers, and improve daily life for millions.

Why Join Masabi?

• Driven by Purpose – We believe in journeys made simple. The work isn’t always easy, but the best things never are.

• Encouraged to Accelerate – Masabi is going places and our people are in the driving seat. Whether you’re taking the direct route or exploring new paths, we support your journey.

• Advancing with Empathy – We put people first and foster a culture of learning, not blame. No matter your cargo, we share the load.

We’re already powering journeys - are you ready to join us?