Sr. Data Engineer focuses on loyalty and customer spend data, building reliable systems that leadership can trust for decision-making.

Collaborate with Marketing, Finance, Operations, and leadership to clarify business questions, translate them into data requirements, and recommend solution approaches without extensive direction.
Own data solutions from concept through production, including evaluating options, making architectural trade-offs, and delivering working outcomes with minimal supervision.
Design, build, and maintain data pipelines, ingestion flows, and analytical models for loyalty, customer, and transaction data.
Define and own data architecture for the domain, aligning with business needs while supporting security, scalability, and cost effectiveness.
Partner with external technology vendors and data providers (loyalty, POS, digital ordering, marketing platforms) to define integrations, resolve data issues, and hold partners accountable for data quality and delivery.
Create and manage data contracts with internal and external sources, integrate new data sets, and develop reusable transformation patterns.
Find gaps in existing data processes and drive improvements, including best practices such as automated monitoring, alerting, and self-healing processing.
Apply AI/ML technologies, including large language models and agentic frameworks, to expand analytics capabilities and automate insight generation.
Modernize ingestion frameworks and build secure, scalable, and maintainable solutions that support EL Pollo Loco growth.

8+ years of progressive experience in data engineering, data architecture, or analytics engineering, including ownership of production data platforms.
Expert-level SQL plus strong experience with modern ETL/ELT practices and data processing.
Hands-on experience with cloud data warehouse platforms (example listed: Snowflake or comparable).
Experience with data governance and data modeling to support data integrity across analytics and reporting.
Ability to take an ambiguous business problem and independently design, build, and deliver a solution.
Experience managing integrations and working relationships with third-party technology vendors.
Experience with LLMs and agentic frameworks, including integrating AI into analytics workflows.
Experience with loyalty, customer, or transactional data in restaurant, retail, or consumer businesses is strongly preferred.
Technical leadership mindset with long-term architectural vision and commitment to high-quality delivery.
Comfort operating with ambiguity, setting direction where none exists, and balancing short-term needs with long-term goals.
Clear communication in business terms with executives and non-technical stakeholders.
Sense of urgency and strong attention to detail in a fast-paced environment.

Own El Pollo Loco (EPL) loyalty and customer spend data, turning it into reliable, actionable insight for leadership.
Start from the business problem, then independently design and deliver the data solution needed for leadership decisions.
Own data domains end to end, including source ingestion and architecture through reporting and analysis, while ensuring data integrity across internal systems and external partners.
Drive architectural improvements with business departments, internal technology teams, and external technology vendors.

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field (preferred)

Sr. Data Engineer - Loyalty & Customer Analytics

Job Description