Sr. Data Engineer - Loyalty & Customer Analytics

Own loyalty and customer spend data and turn it into dependable, leadership-ready insight. In this hybrid role in Costa Mesa, CA, you will lead end-to-end data domain ownership for El Pollo Loco’s customer analytics, partnering across business teams and external vendors to improve data integrity and evolve the underlying architecture. If you like solving ambiguous problems and setting direction through strong technical judgment, this role is built for you.

What you’ll do

• Partner with Marketing, Finance, Operations, and leadership to understand business questions, translate them into data requirements, and recommend the right solution approach.
• Own solutions from concept through production, 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, aligned with business needs, security, scalability, and cost effectiveness.
• Work with external technology vendors and data providers (including loyalty, POS, digital ordering, and marketing platforms) to define integrations, resolve data issues, and hold partners accountable for data quality and delivery.
• Establish data contracts with internal and external sources, integrate new data sources, and develop reusable transformation patterns.
• Identify limitations in existing data processes and drive improvements, including automated monitoring, alerting, and self-healing processing practices.
• 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’s growth.

What you bring

• 8+ years of progressive experience in data engineering, data architecture, or analytics engineering, including ownership of production data platforms.
• Expert-level SQL and strong experience with modern ETL/ELT and data processing.
• Hands-on experience with cloud data warehouse platforms such as Snowflake (or comparable).
• Experience with data governance and data modeling to support data integrity across analytics and reporting.
• Demonstrated 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 a commitment to high-quality delivery.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, setting direction, 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.

Technology

SQL, ETL, ELT, Snowflake, large language models, agentic frameworks, AI/ML

Benefits and compensation

• Medical + Dental + Vision Insurance + HSA Savings Account
• 401(K) Retirement Plan with company match and immediate vesting
• Paid Vacation + Sick Pay + 12 Paid Holidays
• Employee Assistance Program
• Free El Pollo Loco food + restaurant discounts
• PerkSpot discounts program

Salary range: USD 130,000 - 143,000 per year.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field is preferred, or equivalent professional experience.

Education and experience requirements

The requirements listed above are representative of the education and/or experience required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

Impact

This is a strategic role. You will directly influence how EL Pollo Loco leadership makes decisions by ensuring customer and loyalty data is available, accurate, and actionable.