Pivotal Logo

Pivotal

Full Stack Data Engineer - Internal Flight Data Applications

Posted Yesterday
Be an Early Applicant
In-Office
Palo Alto, CA, USA
Junior
In-Office
Palo Alto, CA, USA
Junior
Build and maintain full-stack internal applications for exploring aircraft flight data. Develop Python backend services, HTTP APIs, web interfaces, dashboards, AI-assisted diagnostic tools, data catalogs, alert review surfaces, and distributable analysis tooling. Work directly with engineering teams to define requirements, support self-service analysis, and own testing, deployment, CI/CD, monitoring, and documentation.
The summary above was generated by AI
Pivotal is the leader in the emerging market of electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft. We design, develop, and manufacture light eVTOL aircraft and are renowned for the BlackFly aircraft the world's first light eVTOL to fly manned missions and enter the consumer market. 
 
Efficient, compact, and simple, Pivotal aircraft are designed for a wide range of consumer, public service, and defense applications. Our distinctive tilt-aircraft architecture and scalable platform have been flying for over 10 years. Last year we announced our next-generation aircraft, the Helix, which is rapidly progressing toward general release and scalable production in 2026. 
 
Mobility is one of the most highly-valued areas of modern technology investments. This is the right company, in the right space, the right strategy, at the right time. If you are ready for adventure, we invite you to join our amazing team and grow with us.

About the Job

Flight data from across our aircraft fleet feeds a central data platform that engineering teams rely on to understand how the aircraft perform. Pivotal is seeking a Full Stack Data Engineer to build the internal applications that put that data directly in engineers' hands, so teams across the company can explore it and answer their own questions. 

You will work across the whole stack — backend services over the data platform, web front ends that make large datasets explorable, dashboards, AI-assisted tooling that helps engineers interpret what they are looking at, and the packaging that puts analysis tools on an engineer's laptop. Your users sit down the hall, and requirements arrive as a conversation with someone who needs an answer rather than as a written spec, so this role is as much about understanding the question as it is about shipping the tool. It suits an engineer early in their career who wants ownership of real products and direct contact with the people building and flying the aircraft. 

Responsibilities

    • Internal applications: Build and maintain the internal web applications engineers use to work with flight data — flight record browsers, query interfaces, and analysis tools over the warehouse. 

    • Backend services: Develop Python services and HTTP APIs that query Athena and S3 and return results at interactive speed, including pagination and caching over large result sets. 

    • Front end: Build interfaces that make large telemetry datasets explorable — sortable tables, filters, and time-series plots — for engineers who are never going to write SQL. 

    • AI-assisted diagnosis: Build agent-based tooling over the data platform so engineers can ask questions in plain language and follow a symptom through to a root cause without hand-writing queries. Design these tools to return the underlying data and how it was derived, not just an answer, so an engineer can verify the result before acting on it. 

    • Self-serve analysis: Turn recurring one-off analyses from the firmware, GNC, battery, and maintenance teams into supported, self-serve tools instead of scripts that only their author can run. 

    • Data catalog: Generate the internal field guide and data catalog from the warehouse itself, so what engineers read cannot drift from what the tables actually contain — and keep that metadata machine-readable, so the tooling and agents built on top of it interpret results correctly. 

    • Alert review: Build the review and triage surfaces for fleet health alerts — acknowledgment, history, and trend views — alongside the existing dashboards and Slack notifications. 

    • Tooling distribution: Package and distribute analysis tooling so it runs on an engineer's laptop, Windows included, without someone walking them through an environment setup. 

    • Ownership: Carry your work through deployment — tests, code review, CI/CD, and the monitoring that tells you when something breaks. 

    • Collaboration: Sit with the engineering teams to scope what they actually need, and document what you ship so the next person can support it. 

Qualifications 

  • 2+ years of professional experience building and shipping web applications, backend through front end
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience
  • Proficient in Python, and comfortable writing SQL against a real database
  • Experience with a modern JavaScript or TypeScript front-end framework (React, Vue, or similar)
  • Has built and consumed HTTP APIs, including authentication, pagination, and error handling
  • Comfortable with Git-based workflows, code review, and CI/CD
  • Can sit with a non-software engineer, work out what they actually need, and ship it — most requirements here arrive as a conversation, not a spec 

Preferred Qualifications 

    • AWS experience, particularly S3, Athena, Lambda, or API Gateway
    • Worked with large or time-series datasets, and knows how to keep a UI responsive over millions of rows 
    • Charting and data visualization libraries; Grafana dashboard development 
    • Docker, and infrastructure as code with Terraform 
    • Has built with LLM APIs or agent frameworks — tool use, retrieval over structured data, and evaluating whether the output can be trusted 
    • Has built internal tools where the users are colleagues rather than customers 

Familiarity/experience with one or more of the following:

     
    • Aerospace, automotive, or robotics telemetry, and flight or vehicle test data
    • Packaging desktop or command-line tooling for non-developer users, including on Windows
    • Authentication and access control for internal applications (SSO, IAM, scoped credentials)
    • Regulated or safety-critical environments with traceability and data retention requirements
    • Natural-language or conversational interfaces over structured, time-series, or diagnostic data
    • Interest in RC planes, quadcopters, or aviation 

Attributes aligned with Core Values

  • Safety Above All: Demonstrates a proactive safety mindset by embedding safety into daily work, identifying and mitigating risks, encouraging open dialogue about safety concerns, and continuously improving practices and protocols.
  • Customer Focus: Puts customers at the center of every action by understanding their challenges, delivering meaningful value, and supporting their success.
  • Work Better Together: Seeks and values diverse perspectives, builds cross-functional relationships, and fosters trust through empathetic, fact-based communication and commitment to shared decisions.
  • Be the Pilot: Drives results with clarity and purpose by focusing on what matters most, adapting to change, taking initiative, and owning outcomes.
  • Embrace the Unknown: Navigates ambiguity with resilience and bold thinking, challenges the status quo, and combines innovative ideas with practical approaches to overcome obstacles and drive progress.
  • Respect for People: Fosters a high-performance culture grounded in respect, professionalism, and support by balancing high expectations with a healthy, collaborative environment and being a trusted, dependable teammate.

Applicants must be eligible for employment in the United States and willing to work onsite at our HQ office in Palo Alto, CA.
 
Pivotal offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, and 401k plans.
 
Pivotal is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Pivotal does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.

Similar Jobs

27 Seconds Ago
In-Office
28-28 Hourly
Senior level
28-28 Hourly
Senior level
Consumer Web • eCommerce • Machine Learning • Software • Sports • Analytics
Leads and mentors the Customer Relations Center team, resolves customer and claims issues, improves response quality, creates procedures, tracks turnaround times, supports label and damage reviews, collaborates with IT on portal efficiencies, and communicates company policies to customers across phone, email, chat, and in-person channels.
3 Minutes Ago
Remote or Hybrid
Sunnyvale, CA, USA
128K-189K Annually
Entry level
128K-189K Annually
Entry level
Automotive • Big Data • Information Technology • Robotics • Software • Transportation • Manufacturing
Develop Python software and data systems that capture, validate, process, monitor, and deliver autonomous-vehicle telemetry from fleets to cloud and AI development pipelines. Own reliability initiatives, define architectures and operational metrics, debug distributed cloud and backend issues, improve observability and data quality, and apply AI/LLMs to incident triage and root-cause analysis. Collaborate across engineering and operations teams, lead design reviews, deliver tested production solutions, and mentor engineers.
Top Skills: APIsAutomated TestingBackend ServicesBigQueryC++CiCloud StorageContainer OrchestrationData PipelinesDistributed SystemsGCPKubernetesLlmsMetricsMonitoringPythonSQLTelemetry Pipelines
4 Minutes Ago
Remote or Hybrid
United States
69K-107K Annually
Expert/Leader
69K-107K Annually
Expert/Leader
Automotive • Big Data • Information Technology • Robotics • Software • Transportation • Manufacturing
Provides on-site automotive technical support to GM dealerships and wholesale teams. Diagnoses vehicle and Techline issues, resolves escalated cases, supports repair and repurchase prevention, reviews dealership service readiness, trains personnel, troubleshoots IT and diagnostic tools, and reports product concerns to GM engineering and quality teams. The role manages territory relationships, supports arbitration and legal cases, and requires frequent travel, extensive automotive diagnostic experience, and strong customer and technical communication skills.
Top Skills: Buffalo ToolController Area Networks (Can)Gm Essential Service ToolsGm Global Connect Service ApplicationsGm LanGm Service Training CollegeInca ToolLan/WanMS OfficeNeoviPicoscopeTis/GdsV-Spy Intrepid Tools

What you need to know about the San Francisco Tech Scene

San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area attracts more startup funding than any other region in the world. Home to Stanford University and UC Berkeley, leading VC firms and several of the world’s most valuable companies, the Bay Area is the place to go for anyone looking to make it big in the tech industry. That said, San Francisco has a lot to offer beyond technology thanks to a thriving art and music scene, excellent food and a short drive to several of the country’s most beautiful recreational areas.

Key Facts About San Francisco Tech

  • Number of Tech Workers: 365,500; 13.9% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
  • Major Tech Employers: Google, Apple, Salesforce, Meta
  • Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, fintech, consumer technology, software
  • Funding Landscape: $50.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
  • Notable Investors: Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins
  • Research Centers and Universities: Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; University of San Francisco; Santa Clara University; Ames Research Center; Center for AI Safety; California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Sign up now Access later

Create Free Account

Please log in or sign up to report this job.

Create Free Account