Data Engineer

Xcel Energy Services Inc; Denver (CO); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Xcel Energy Services Inc. is hiring a Data Engineer for the Xcel Vision Suite (XVS) Data & Applications Engineering team in the Denver area.

You will build and evolve data pipelines, internal apps, dashboards, and engineering workflows that support generation, transmission, distribution, and gas planning. You will collaborate with Product, Data Science, and IT, translating loosely defined needs into usable tools while ensuring code quality, testing, and deployment standards.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or 4 years of equivalent experience.
• Excellent communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience managing lifecycle of technical solutions.
• Strong collaboration across Product, Data Science, IT, and vendors.

Responsibilities

• Lead and support solution lifecycle activities with focus on user experience and performance.
• Monitor and improve health of data pipelines, applications, dashboards, and workflows.
• Apply standards for code quality, testing, documentation, deployment, and knowledge transfer.

Skills

Data pipelines

Technical problem solving

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Technology/Science/Business or related field

4 years of equivalent work experience

Tools

Databricks

Job description

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL) is a leading energy provider and Fortune 500 company, dedicated to serving millions of electricity and natural gas customers across eight states: Minnesota, Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico and Texas. We make energy work better for our customers, helping them thrive every day. That means always raising the bar - delivering better service and providing more reliable, resilient, and sustainable energy.

Xcel Energy is a place where you'll have opportunities to grow, expand your skills, and help lead the clean energy transition. We offer meaningful rewards, recognition, and support to help you build your career and make an impact - both on the job and beyond. Most importantly, it means you'll be joining a company that knows employees are the driving force behind its success and is committed to helping you be your best.

Xcel Energy supports a hybrid work model to enable collaboration and flexibility. Many roles are expected to work onsite three days per week (Tuesday-Thursday); however, work location expectations vary based on role, team, and business needs.

Position Summary

The Data Engineer will be a hands-on engineer on the Xcel Vision Suite (XVS) Data & Applications Engineering team, reporting to the Manager of Data & Applications Engineering. This role will build and evolve the data pipelines, internal applications, dashboards, and engineering workflows that support XVS across generation, transmission, distribution, and gas planning.

The position works closely with Product, Data Science, Enterprise IT, and external consultants to turn planning workflows, data science outputs, and consultant-delivered solutions into maintainable internal capabilities. This role will help establish and follow standards for code quality, testing, documentation, deployment, and knowledge transfer, while contributing to a practical, scalable approach for how XVS tools are built, shipped, and maintained over time.

The role requires strong technical judgment, comfort working in ambiguity, and the ability to translate loosely defined needs into usable tools and data products for planners and engineers. It also includes applying automation and AI-assisted development practices to improve delivery speed, consistency, and quality.

Essential Responsibilities

• Solution Delivery: Lead and support solution lifecycle technical activities. Ensure solutions are designed for great user experience and operational performance. Lead design, ensuring Enterprise Architecture, Security, Operations and Compliance aspects are continuously integrated into solutions. Provide input to cost and schedule estimation. Responsible for overall integrity of system design and operation. Oversee vendor activities.
• Operations: Review solution performance, and continually assess health of systems. Track and drive awareness to operational and technical debt risks. Provide escalated support to incident and problem management. Utilise analytics to improve availability, reliability, efficiency and capacity. Oversee vendor activities.
• Subject Matter Expertise: Continuously stay current on, and apply, technical industry knowledge pertaining to the respective domain
• Relationship Management: Conduct peer reviews and approve system changes and technical solution design. Coach and mentor less experience team members. Partner cross-organizationally to drive minimal costs on optimal solutions. Provide in-depth technical information to stakeholders as needed.

Minimum Requirements

• Seven years of related functional experience.
• Bachelor's degree in Technology, Science, Business or related field, or 4 years of experience equivalent to the position.
• Excellent communication skills, effective with varying organizational levels and skill set, and able to translate between technical and non-technical concepts.
• Excellent Relationship Management and collaboration skills, with a track record of working as one team cross-organizationally to drive innovation and business results.
• Experience managing the lifecycle of technical solutions.
• Deep Subject Matter Expertise within the respective system domain products, platforms, processes and architecture.
• Broad general knowledge of technology architecture, infrastructure, network, security and software principles and models.
• Experience working in partnership with internal and external vendors.
• Proven analytical, problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
• Extensive knowledge of future technology trends within area of expertise.
• Demonstrated leadership on technical aspects of large scale projects.
• Experience with delivery methodologies (Waterfall, Agile, Scrum) and operational models (ITIL) Experience and understanding of core IT Service Management functions, such as Change Management and Incident Management.

Preferred Requirements

• Hands-on experience with Databricks (jobs/workflows, Delta tables, performance tuning, Unity Catalog, access controls).
• Experience implementing Me