---
title: 'Data Engineer - Flight Data (contract) at Pivotal'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/data-engineer-flight-data-contract-pivotal-palo-alto-m8df0pcpa7zs'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Data Engineer - Flight Data (contract) at Pivotal

- **Company:** Pivotal
- **Location:** Palo Alto, CA
- **Compensation:** $60–$70/hr
- **Employment:** contract
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-18
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/pivotal/eb8100f9-b79a-43d8-b6d8-bdc578542b5d

## Job description

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.

Pivotal is seeking a Data Engineer to build and operate the flight data warehouse — the system of record for telemetry off every aircraft in the fleet. Flight logs land continuously from customer and test aircraft; you will turn them into curated datasets, automated fleet health alerts, and dashboards that the firmware, GNC, battery, flight operations, and MRO teams rely on to make airworthiness and design decisions. This is a small team building production infrastructure, so you will own pipelines end to end: the data model, the services that run on it, the infrastructure as code that deploys them, and the monitoring that tells us when they break.

## Responsibilities

- Pipeline development: Build and maintain the ingest and transformation pipelines that land aircraft telemetry from S3 into the flight data warehouse (AWS Glue, Athena), including schema evolution as firmware logging changes.
- Data modeling: Design and maintain curated marts — flight runs, component flight hours, vehicle modes, battery flight features — in SQL, with clear grain, documented lineage, and idempotent incremental refresh.
- Fleet alerting services: Develop and operate the Python services that evaluate flight-by-flight health checks and deliver alerts to engineering and customer-facing channels via SNS and Slack.
- Data quality: Own the automated quality gates — mart freshness, source-to-mart reconciliation, and watermark integrity — and block deploys that would publish incorrect fleet data.
- Analytics enablement: Build the dashboards and query interfaces engineering teams use to monitor the fleet, and convert repeated one-off analyses into supported datasets.
- Collaboration: Work directly with firmware, GNC, battery, systems engineering, flight operations, and MRO to define what gets logged, what gets alerted on, and what “good” looks like for each signal.

## Qualifications

- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer/Electrical Engineering, or a related technical discipline
- 3+ years of professional data engineering experience building and operating production pipelines
- Strong SQL, including window functions and query tuning on a distributed, columnar engine (Athena/Trino/Presto, Spark, Snowflake, or BigQuery)
- Proficient in Python for production services — not just notebooks: packaging, dependency management, unit tests, and code review
- Hands-on experience with the AWS data stack: S3, Glue, Athena, Lambda, SNS, CloudWatch, and IAM
- Dimensional modeling and warehouse design, including partitioning strategy for large tables
- Excellent analytical and written communication skills, with the ability to work across multidisciplinary teams

## Preferred Qualifications

- 5+ years of relevant data engineering experience, including ownership of an on-call or operationally critical data system
- Infrastructure as code with Terraform, and building deployment pipelines in GitLab CI or equivalent
- Transformation frameworks such as dbt, and data quality/testing frameworks
- High-volume time-series or sensor telemetry, and observability tooling (Grafana, CloudWatch, or similar), including alert design that avoids alarm fatigue

Familiarity/experience with one or more of the following:

- Aerospace, automotive, or robotics telemetry and flight/vehicle test data
- Embedded logging formats and decoding raw device logs (CAN, serial, or proprietary binary packet formats)
- FAA aircraft certification or continued airworthiness processes
- Interest in RC planes, quadcopters, or aviation

Attributes aligned with Core Values

- 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.

## About Pivotal

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Pivotal builds the world’s first commercially available eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft, the Helix, for personal, public safety, and defense applications.
- **Entity Type**: Private (funding stage not publicly disclosed)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2016
- **Founders**: Not publicly available

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing; eVTOL aircraft development.
- **Target customers**: B2B (public safety, defense, EMS, special operations, rescue missions) and B2C (personal aviation).
- **Mission or purpose**: “To open the sky for everyone” by redefining what’s possible in aviation through safe, electric vertical flight.

## Products & Services
- **[Helix eVTOL Aircraft](https://www.pivotal.aero/about-us)**: A single-seat, fixed-wing vertical takeoff and landing electric aircraft. Designed for personal use, public safety, and defense missions. Available for purchase through the company website.
- **Hybrid Propulsion Demo (Gen 3 Aircraft)**: Next-generation platform with hybrid propulsion capabilities, currently in development and testing.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Annual revenue estimated at **$10 million** (source: LinkedIn company data)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly listed; key executives include CEO Ken Karklin, CFO Jon Campagna, and Chief People Officer Alison Roelke.
- **Growth Signals**: 27% year-over-year headcount growth (114 employees, +34 YoY); 50+ Pivotal-certified pilots; over 8,000 flights completed; 26 active job postings (up 225% year-over-year); expansion into hybrid propulsion and defense contracts.

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-mover advantage** as the first commercially available eVTOL aircraft.
- **Safety-first culture** – “We commit to safety as if a loved one is on board.”
- **Vertical integration** of design, manufacturing, flight operations, and maintenance.
- **Strong engineering talent pool** – hiring from top aerospace and tech companies (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Joby, Amazon, Cruise).

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling production of the Helix for personal and commercial markets.
- Entering public safety and defense verticals (EMS, special operations, contested logistics).
- Advancing hybrid propulsion technology for longer range and mission flexibility.
- Growing the flight operations team and pilot certification program.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Values-driven environment emphasizing safety, customer focus, respect, and innovation. “Dreamers and doers” with a collaborative, hands-on approach.
- **Workplace**: On-site in Palo Alto, CA (no remote/hybrid option mentioned in job postings).
- **Engineering focus**: Open roles in embedded software, autonomy, computer vision, aeromechanical verification, power electronics, and flight test.
- **Transparent pay structure**: Published salary bands for all levels (e.g., PB 9: $62k–$93k; PB 19: $150k–$250k; PB 23: $375k–$625k).
- **Employee rating**: 3.7/5.0 on LinkedIn (31 reviews), with work-life balance scored 4.7/5.0.
- **Impact**: Opportunity to work on a transformative technology that redefines personal and mission aviation.

## Sources
1. [pivotal.aero - Careers](https://www.pivotal.aero/careers)
2. [pivotal.aero - About Us](https://www.pivotal.aero/about-us)
3. [linkedin.com - Pivotal](https://linkedin.com/company/pivotalaero)
4. [jobs.lever.co - Pivotal](https://jobs.lever.co/pivotal)
5. [pivotal.aero - Pay Structure](https://www.pivotal.aero/pay-structure)

## Other roles at Pivotal

- [Senior Manager, Systems Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-manager-systems-engineering-pivotal-palo-alto-v12721qmbhp4) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Internship, Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul Engineering (Fall 2026)](https://feeny.ai/job/internship-maintenance-repair-overhaul-engineering-fall-2026-pivotal-palo-alto-9kycsmbjzq4e) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Internship, GNC Engineering (Fall)](https://feeny.ai/job/internship-gnc-engineering-fall-pivotal-palo-alto-j22dndmeyhfn) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Senior Maintenance Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-maintenance-engineer-pivotal-palo-alto-d2gknd9trz5m) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Autonomy Engineer II - Robotics](https://feeny.ai/job/autonomy-engineer-ii-robotics-pivotal-palo-alto-ca-or-miami-13rkabhjgyse) — Palo Alto CA OR Miami, FL
- [Senior Battery Engineering Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-battery-engineering-technician-pivotal-palo-alto-dsjm2d17p92r) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Customer Support Representative (Tier 3)](https://feeny.ai/job/customer-support-representative-tier-3-pivotal-palo-alto-ca-or-miami-d6gzam9cc4k7) — Palo Alto CA OR Miami, FL
- [Embedded Software Engineer II](https://feeny.ai/job/embedded-software-engineer-ii-pivotal-palo-alto-bxy0563k4fmy) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Senior Configuration Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-configuration-engineer-pivotal-palo-alto-gnc7et5ncdg7) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Flight Test Operator I](https://feeny.ai/job/flight-test-operator-i-pivotal-palo-alto-mpgtm68427fv) — Palo Alto, CA