Data Platform Engineer - Branch International

Branch Overview

Branch is a leading AI-powered lending fintech with 50M+ downloads across India and Africa. We use alternative data and machine learning to expand financial access for millions of people traditionally excluded from the formal financial system. Founded by the former CEO of Kiva.org and backed by leading investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Visa, and the IFC, Branch combines mission-driven impact with world-class technology and scale.

In India, Branch operates as a regulated digital lending institution and Middle Layer NBFC, building trusted and accessible financial products for millions of customers across the country. Our 250+ member India team is growing rapidly and works across technology, data science, risk, product, and operations to solve high-impact problems at scale.

Certified as a Great Place to Work in 2025, Branch offers the opportunity to build meaningful careers while shaping the future of inclusive fintech in one of the world’s fastest-growing digital economies.

Job Overview

We are looking for a Senior Data Platform Engineer who will build and evolve the foundational data platform that powers analytics, underwriting/credit models, experimentation, and operational reporting. You will work closely with our Product, Data Science and Business teams to design and maintain multiple technologies, including our API backend, credit scoring and underwriting systems, payments integrations, and operations tools. We face numerous interesting technical challenges ranging from maintaining complex financial systems to accessing and processing creative data sources for our algorithmic credit model. This is not a “pipeline-only” role. You will own platform primitives: ingestion patterns, data modeling standards, orchestration, governance, reliability, and developer experience-so that downstream teams can move faster with high-quality, trusted data.

As a company, we are passionate about our customers, fearless in the face of barriers, and driven by data. As an engineering team, we value bottom-up innovation and decentralized decision-making: We believe the best ideas can come from anyone in the company, and we are working hard to create an environment where everyone feels empowered to propose solutions to the challenges we face. We are looking for individuals who thrive in a fast-moving, innovative, and customer-focused setting.

Responsibilities

• Design and build the data platform to support TB-scale datasets with strong reliability, observability, and cost efficiency.
• Build standardized ingestion frameworks (batch + near-real-time where needed), including schema evolution, backfills, and data quality controls.
• Own warehouse/lakehouse modeling patterns (dimensional, event-based, and domain-oriented models), with clear semantic layers for self-serve analytics.
• Implement data governance & security: access controls, lineage, PII handling, retention policies, and auditability.
• Partner with stakeholders to translate ambiguous needs into crisp platform roadmaps and phased delivery.
• Scaling our backend services to ever-growing levels of traffic and complexity.

Qualifications

• 4-7 years building production-grade data/backend systems, with meaningful ownership of platform components end-to-end.
• Experience leveraging modern AI tools for efficiency and effectiveness
• You have strong knowledge of software development fundamentals, including relevant background in computer science fundamentals, distributed systems, data storage, and agile development methodologies.
• You are pragmatic and combine a strong understanding of technology and product needs to arrive at the best solution for a given problem.
• You are highly entrepreneurial and thrive in taking ownership of your own impact. You take the initiative to solve problems before they arise.
• You are an excellent collaborator & communicator. You know that startups are a team sport. You listen to others, aren’t afraid to speak your mind and always try to ask the right questions.
• You are excited by the prospect of working in a distributed team and company, working with teammates from all over the world.
• Experience in designing, building, and maintaining scalable data architectures that integrate disparate data sources.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, data storage, and data modeling
• Hands-on experience with a modern stack similar to dbt + orchestration (Airflow/Dagster) + cloud warehouse (Snowflake/BigQuery/Redshift).
• Strong programming ability in Python or Go, plus SQL fluency.

Why Join Us

• Competitive salary and equity package
• Fast-paced, collaborative, and high-autonomy work culture
• Hybrid work setup designed for flexibility and work-life balance
• Fully paid group medical insurance and personal accident insurance
• Generous paid time off, plus company-declared public holidays
• Fully paid parental leave for fathers and non-birthing parents (12 weeks), in addition to 26 weeks of statutory maternity leave
• Monthly WFH stipend, along with a one-time home office setup budget
• $500 annual professional development budget
• Quarterly social meet-ups and sponsored monthly team lunches

We’re looking for more than just qualifications -- if you’re unsure that you meet the criteria but identify with our vision of providing equal opportunity to everyone to access financial services, please do not hesitate to apply!

Branch International is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The company does not and will not discriminate in employment on any basis prohibited by applicable law.