TalentAtlas Role market snapshot Role Market Snapshot · USD 79
Senior data engineer, remote within the EU
What the market currently calls this role, what it pays, what it asks for, and which of your requirements are the reason nobody is applying.
You have had this role open for eleven weeks and eight applicants. This snapshot reads 340 current postings for the same work across the EU to establish what the role is actually called, what it actually pays, and which of your eleven stated requirements are normal and which are the reason your posting is being skipped.
Your posted range sits in the bottom quartile for this role at this seniority in every location you will hire from, and the posting asks for two things that appear in fewer than one in eight comparable roles. Neither problem is a sourcing problem, and neither is solved by another recruiter.
Definition
What the market calls this job
You are advertising Senior Data Engineer. That title covers three materially different jobs in the current market, and your responsibilities describe the second one while your requirements describe the third.
| Title cluster | Share of postings | What the work actually is | Match to your description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data engineer, pipeline | 41% | Ingest, transform, orchestrate. dbt, Airflow, a warehouse | Partial |
| Analytics engineer | 27% | Modelling and semantic layer. Closer to the business | Strong |
| Platform or infrastructure data engineer | 19% | Streaming, Kubernetes, cost and reliability of the platform itself | Weak |
| Machine learning engineer, data leaning | 13% | Feature stores and serving. A different market and a different price | None |
Your day to day is analytics engineering. Your requirements list is platform engineering. Candidates who can do both exist, cost roughly 30 percent more than either, and are not the people you need.
Pay
What it pays, by location
Base salary only, converted to USD at the rate in the appendix, from the 214 of 340 postings that disclose a range. Bands run from the tenth to the ninetieth percentile of disclosed ranges in each market.
A remote EU role competes with every band above it, because the candidate compares your offer to what they could earn without moving. Your ceiling of USD 74k is below the midpoint of the market you are actually hiring in, which is USD 92k.
Requirements
Which of your asks are normal
Each of your eleven stated requirements, against how often it appears in the 340 comparable postings. Anything under 20 percent is a filter you are applying that the market is not.
Competition
Who else is hiring the same person
Sixteen companies in the comparable set are currently hiring a remote EU role that a candidate would consider alongside yours. These six are the ones a candidate is most likely to be holding an offer from.
| Range | Remote | Equity | Async | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ardent Labs, you | 62 to 74k | EU wide | Yes | Core hours |
| Competitor A | 88 to 112k | EU wide | None | Fully async |
| Competitor B | 78 to 104k | 3 countries | Yes | Core hours |
| Competitor C | Not stated | Hybrid, Berlin | Yes | Office days |
| Competitor D | 70 to 95k | EU wide | None | Fully async |
| Competitor E | 95 to 130k | EU wide | Yes | Core hours |
You are competitive on remote scope and equity and last on range. Equity at a 22 person company does not offset USD 18k of cash for a senior hire with a mortgage, which is the profile of most candidates at this level.
Options
Three ways to close this
In order of cost. Each one is sufficient on its own. The first is free.
Retitle and cut two requirements
Advertise Analytics Engineer, drop Kubernetes and the certification. This aligns the posting with the actual work and roughly quadruples the pool who see themselves in it. Costs one edit.
Move the range to 80 to 96k
Puts you at the EU remote midpoint rather than below the floor. This is what the market says the role costs, and no amount of sourcing effort substitutes for it.
Narrow the geography deliberately
Hire in Lisbon or Warsaw, where your current range sits mid band rather than bottom quartile. Legitimate, but it is a different role with a different candidate and it needs an employment answer first.
- Today
Retitle the posting
Analytics Engineer, senior. It is what the job is. Titles are the single largest determinant of who reads a posting, and you are currently in the wrong queue.
- Today
Remove the two outlier requirements
Kubernetes and the vendor certification. Neither appears in the responsibilities. Both are doing real damage.
- This week
Decide the range before you reopen
Publish it. Sixty three percent of postings in this set now publish a range, and unpublished ranges correlate with lower application rates across every market measured here.
- Week 3
Re-measure
Applications per week, not total. If the retitle alone takes you above fifteen a week, the money question can wait. If it does not, the money question is the whole question.