Full Stack Data Engineer - Internal Flight Data Applications

United States·Palo AltoFull-time (Exempt)entry

Data EngineerData

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Requirements Summary

Build and maintain the internal web applications engineers use to work with flight data — flight record browsers, query interfaces, and

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Data EngineerData

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 Role

~5 min read

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.