- Contributions to open-source data projects (Spark, Iceberg, Kafka, StarRocks, or similar)
- Conference talks, blog posts, or other public technical writing
- Experience running Spark on GPU (RAPIDS) or other query acceleration techniques
- Experience with stream processing (Spark Structured Streaming, Kafka Streams, Flink)
- Experience with dbt and/or Airflow
- Knowledge of Ansible, Puppet, or similar configuration systems
- A track record of leveraging AI agents to accelerate engineering work
- Familiarity with how ML training pipelines consume data, to partner effectively with algo teams
How you’ll make an impact
- Shape the technical direction of the Data Platform group — the architecture, the long-term roadmap, and the bets we make on emerging tech (Iceberg, StarRocks, GPU Spark, dbt, AI tooling)
- Mentor and grow engineers across the group: lead design reviews, pair on hard problems, review code with care, and help strong engineers grow into technical leaders
- Raise the engineering bar group-wide — set standards for design, code quality, testing, observability, and operational excellence
- Own the hardest problems on our stack: Spark performance and cost across 60,000+ jobs/day, Iceberg table management at Taboola scale, high-throughput Kafka ingestion, and low-latency analytics on StarRocks
- Evolve our Spark SQL platform and the core framework code used across R&D — making the call on what gets built, refactored, or retired
- Drive the evolution of our lakehouse, with Iceberg as the backbone — from ingestion through storage, compaction, and serving
- Be the go-to expert for the production health of the main Taboola data pipeline — the system behind reports, ML model training, billing, and other business-critical processes — and lead deep-dives and postmortems on the toughest incidents
- Partner with team leaders, group managers, and fellow principal engineers to shape how the platform evolves across R&D, balancing the needs of algo, product, finance, and infrastructure stakeholders
- Stay deeply hands-on — write production code, build prototypes, and prove out new technology before the group commits to it
- Represent the group internally and externally — in architecture forums, hiring, open-source communities, and conference talks
- Directly shape how billions of people discover the internet
Here are some of the things engineers in our group have done — or are doing right now
- Pioneered deployment of Spark SQL workloads on GPU with RAPIDS
- Delivered a real-time pipeline reports product serving all our customers on top of Druid
- Actively migrating a proprietary ETL system to dbt-core
- Pioneered usage of Iceberg (and gave conference talks about it) — yes, we manage it ourselves
- Productionizing our StarRocks deployments
- Building pipelines on top of Spark Streaming, Iceberg, and dbt
- Extending data solutions to help algo engineers iterate fasterOur Tech Stack
Java, Spark, Kafka, Iceberg, Hadoop, Cassandra, Vertica, StarRocks, MySQL, HDFS, BigQuery, Docker, Linux, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Grafana, Airflow, dbt, Druid
Why Taboola?
If you ask Taboolars what they love about working here, they’ll tell you that they’ve been empowered to realize their full potential while growing and learning from and with smart and talented people. They’ll also share more about:
- Adam Singolda, Taboola Founder and CEO says; “You can copy anything from another business but you can’t copy a company’s culture.”
- Well-being: Competitive benefits and well-being programs tailored to the region, including comprehensive health benefits, a fully stocked kitchen, and location-specific perks.
- Flexibility: We offer a hybrid work schedule with 3 days in-office with an option to come in more often if desired.
- Work with some of the biggest names: Our publisher partners include Yahoo, Conde Nast, Fox Sports, NBCU, ESPN, CBS, and E! Online. Our advertiser clients include Wells Fargo, Honda, Pinterest, and Expedia.
Ready to realize your potential?
Learn more about #TaboolaLife on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, & the Taboola Life Blog.
