Data Engineer

DNI (Delaware Nation Industries); Dahlgren (VA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

DNI (Delaware Nation Industries) seeks a Data Engineer to design, implement, and optimize cloud-native data solutions for JWAC IT Services. You will work onsite at JWAC in Dahlgren, VA, supporting a TS/SCI/SAP environment and collaborating with data scientists, cybersecurity personnel, and cloud engineers.

Responsibilities include building end-to-end data pipelines, managing ingestion and ETL workflows, and ensuring secure, cost-aware operations with AWS services.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline (CS/CE/Data Eng).
• At least 3 years in data engineering or data science with software lifecycle experience.
• Experience designing cloud-native data solutions on AWS.
• Experience with data warehouses/analytics like Redshift, Athena or Lake Formation.
• Proficiency with Python, Jupyter, and ML tooling for data prep and model-ready datasets.
• Ability to obtain TS/SCI/SAP access and work onsite in Dahlgren, VA.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, troubleshoot, and tune end-to-end cloud-native data pipelines on AWS.
• Develop ELT/ETL workflows and data ingestion, validation, and publication processes.
• Integrate structured and unstructured data from diverse sources.
• Create data architectures and stores for analytics, feature engineering, and real-time inference.
• Develop AI/ML infra support including model hosting and RAG workloads.
• Implement security controls, monitoring, and DoD compliance requirements.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across government, data science, and cloud teams.

Skills

Cloud data engineering

AWS platform

Data ingestion

ETL workflows

Data architecture

Security controls

FinOps

Python

Jupyter

SageMaker Studio

OpenSearch

Kendra

RAG

LLM integration

Terraform

Monitoring

Education

Bachelor of Science in CS/CE/Data Eng

Tools

AWS Glue

Amazon Athena

Amazon Redshift

Amazon Kinesis

AWS Lake Formation

Amazon DynamoDB

OpenSearch

Kendra

CloudWatch

CloudTrail

Job description

DNI is seeking a highly qualified Data Engineer to support the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC) under Air Force JWAC IT Services (JITS) Task Order 2. The Data Engineer will design, implement, secure, monitor, and optimize cloud-native data engineering solutions that support data science, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), agentic services, hosted models, and large language model (LLM) optimization. The role integrates data engineering, FinOps, Zero Trust security, and AI/ML infrastructure responsibilities within a single position.

This position is expected to work onsite at JWAC in Dahlgren, Virginia, supporting a TS/SCI/SAP environment.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, troubleshoot, and tune end-to-end cloud-native data engineering solutions using AWS platform and software services
• Develop and administer data ingestion, ETL, integration, transformation, validation, publication, and lifecycle-management workflows
• Integrate structured and unstructured data from databases, web services, message traffic, data dumps, documents, and other sources
• Design data architectures and managed data stores that support analytics, feature engineering, model training, and real-time inference
• Develop solutions using AWS services such as AWS Glue, Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Kinesis, AWS Lake Formation, AWS Glue Data Catalog, Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora, and Amazon DynamoDB
• Create REST APIs and web services to expose data to JWAC-developed applications and analytical systems
• Support AI/ML infrastructure, including model hosting, model-ready datasets, agentic workflow orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and LLM integration and optimization
• Develop automation, monitoring, alerting, and self-healing capabilities using AWS-native tools such as Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail
• Implement data discovery and search capabilities using services such as Amazon OpenSearch Service, AWS Glue Data Catalog, and Amazon Kendra
• Apply FinOps practices, including resource tagging, cost allocation, right-sizing, storage tiering, query optimization, budget monitoring, cost-per-workload analysis, and AI/LLM cost tracking
• Implement DoD Zero Trust and NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 security controls across data engineering and AI service environments
• Configure identity and access management, least-privilege access, encryption at rest and in transit, network segmentation, certificate management, and security monitoring
• Support security assessments, compliance documentation, data-flow diagrams, control mappings, and authorization activities
• Gather requirements, evaluate data sources, communicate technical recommendations, and document architecture, processes, costs, risks, and implementation decisions
• Develop briefings, technical proposals, operating procedures, user documentation, training materials, and knowledge-transfer products
• Collaborate with Government stakeholders, data scientists, analysts, cybersecurity personnel, cloud engineers, and other technical teams

Requirements

• Bachelor of Science degree in computer science, computer engineering, data engineering, data science, or a related technical discipline.
• At least three years of full-time experience in computer science, data engineering, or data science, including hands-on software development lifecycle experience.
• Recent experience designing or implementing data engineering solutions or cloud-native systems on AWS.
• At least one year of experience with cloud-native data warehouse or analytics platforms, such as Amazon Redshift, Amazon Athena, AWS Glue Data Catalog, or AWS Lake Formation.
• At least one year of experience supporting data science applications and analytical tools such as Python, Jupyter, Amazon SageMaker Studio, AWS Glue DataBrew, or Amazon QuickSight
• Experience preparing data for data scientists, including data preparation, feature engineering, and model-ready dataset construction.
• At least one year of experience implementing cloud-native data security controls, including IAM, encryption, and network segmentation.
• Ability to meet DoD 8140.03 requirements for the applicable work roles, including Primary Work Role 422 - Data Architect (Intermediate).
• Ability to obtain and maintain the required TS/SCI/SAP access
• Ability to work onsite in Dahlgren, Virginia, during established core hours and support scheduled maintenance activities as required

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Amazon Bedrock, Knowledge Bases, RAG architectures, agentic services, or LLM prompt and token optimization
• Experience with AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS KMS, AWS IAM Identity Center, and AWS Certificate Manager
• Experience applying NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 and DoD Zero Trust Architecture principles
• Experience with FinOps dashboards and tools such as AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, and AWS Cost and Usage Reports
• Experience with data discovery, federated search, geospatial or non-geospatial search, and knowledge-management solutions
• Experience supporting classified or highly regulated Department of Defense environments
• AWS certifications, data engineering certifications, or relevant DoD cybersecurity certifications