Data Platform Engineer

COMPANY OVERVIEW

KKR is a leading global investment firm that offers alternative asset management

as well as capital markets and insurance solutions. KKR aims to generate

attractive investment returns by following a patient and disciplined investment

approach, employing world-class people, and supporting growth in its portfolio

companies and communities. KKR sponsors investment funds that invest in private

equity, credit and real assets and has strategic partners that manage hedge

funds. KKR’s insurance subsidiaries offer retirement, life and reinsurance

products under the management of Global Atlantic Financial Group. References to

KKR’s investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds and

insurance subsidiaries.

TEAM OVERVIEW

The ADAPT (AI, Data, and Platform Technologies) Engineering team is integral to

KKR's technological strategy, architecting and supporting the firm's

foundational data and AI capabilities. This team is recognized as a key enabler

for global scale and business transformation, driving excellence by evolving

technology into robust, platform-based solutions that enhance agility and

deliver material business impact.

POSITION SUMMARY

KKR is seeking a Data Platform Engineer to join the core ADAPT Engineering team

in Boston. This is a pivotal, hands-on technical leadership role requiring deep

technical expertise in modern data engineering and a proven ability to derive

critical insights from complex, large-scale financial data. The successful

candidate will be instrumental in designing and constructing world-class data

engineering capabilities that efficiently process massive data pipelines,

leverage state-of-the-art AI-powered insights and document extraction, and

integrate seamlessly across diverse cloud-powered databases.

This role requires defining the technical blueprint for how KKR structures,

stores, and leverages data to power its AI and investment platforms, ensuring

data integrity, performance, and accessibility for critical firm-wide services.

This is an onsite role, with expectations to be in our Boston offices 4 days per

week.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

* Lead the architecture, buildout, and modernization of the firm’s unified data

fabric, establishing scalable patterns for data access, interoperability,

governance, and productization across business and technology teams.

* Own the design and evolution of Iceberg-based data platform capabilities,

including data ingestion, egress, data replication, data streaming,

performance optimization, data lifecycle management, and adoption standards

for analytical and operational use cases.

* Define and implement the platform’s compute architecture across stateful,

stateless, and distributed processing layers, balancing performance,

resiliency, scalability, and cost efficiency.

* Design, implement and drive the adoption of event-driven architecture

patterns for real-time ingestion, data movement, and system integration,

ensuring low-latency, reliable, and observable data flows.

* Extend core platform capabilities to support the firm’s AI/ML ecosystem,

including curated datasets, feature-ready pipelines, training and inference

data services, and scalable integration points for model development and

deployment.

* Translate business and engineering priorities into a clear technical roadmap,

making sound architecture decisions and sequencing platform investments to

maximize long-term value.

* Serve as the senior engineering lead across one or more strategic platform

domains, partnering closely with application engineering, enterprise

architecture, data consumers, and machine learning stakeholders.

* Establish and enforce engineering standards for data quality, observability,

lineage, governance, security, and operational excellence across batch and

streaming environments.

* Mentor junior engineers, raising the bar on engineering excellence including

design rigor, implementation quality, and operational ownership across the

team.

* Evaluate emerging technologies and guide proof-of-concept efforts, with

accountability for recommending production-ready solutions aligned to the

firm’s target-state architecture.

QUALIFICATIONS

* Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a

related technical discipline; advanced degree preferred.

* 4+ years of experience in data engineering, distributed systems, or platform

engineering, with meaningful experience operating at a senior technical

leadership level.

* Platform mindset with proven track record designing and delivering

enterprise-scale data platforms or lakehouse ecosystems with strong emphasis

on scalability, reliability, governance, and developer enablement.

* Deep hands-on experience with Apache Iceberg and modern open table formats,

including data modeling, partitioning, performance tuning, metadata

management, and operational best practices.

* Strong understanding of distributed compute architectures, including stateful

and stateless processing models, workload orchestration, fault tolerance, and

performance optimization.

* Demonstrated experience implementing event-driven and streaming architectures

using modern messaging and data movement patterns.

* Experience enabling or extending AI/ML platform capabilities, including

pipeline design, feature/data preparation workflows, and integration with

model development or production ML systems.

* Strong proficiency in Python and SQL; experience with Java or Scala and

modern data processing frameworks is highly desirable.

* Experience working in cloud-native and containerized environments, with

familiarity in orchestration, infrastructure automation, and platform

observability tooling.

* Ability to operate as a senior technical decision-maker: influencing

architecture, driving execution through others, and partnering effectively

across engineering, product, and business stakeholders.

* Experience in AI Harness engineering is highly desirable.

* Strong communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical

decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences.

This is the expected annual base salary range for this Boston-based position.

Actual salaries may vary based on factors, such as skill, experience, and

qualification for the role. Employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus,

based on factors such as individual and team performance.

Base Salary Range

$140,000—$180,000 USD

KKR is an equal opportunity employer. Individuals seeking employment are

considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex,

marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, sexual

orientation, or any other category protected by applicable law.

KKR will provide reasonable accommodations as required by applicable federal,

state, and/or local laws. Individuals seeking an accommodation for the

application or interview process should email [email protected]

[[email protected]]. Emails sent for unrelated issues, such as following up on an

application, will not receive a response.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran, you

may request a reasonable accommodation if you are unable or limited in your

ability to use or access https://www.kkr.com/careers

[https://www.kkr.com/careers] because of your disability. You can request

reasonable accommodations by sending an email to [email protected]

[[email protected]]. Only emails left for this purpose will be returned.

Massachusetts Applicants: It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or

administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued

employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal

penalties and civil liability. This notice applies only to applicants and

employees who work or will work in Massachusetts, in accordance with applicable

state law.