Data Engineer

DataJobs; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

PSS Cross Country Infrastructure Solutions in Houston, TX is seeking a Data Engineer to design and maintain the data architecture that supports business systems and analytics. This role focuses on data modeling, transformation, classification, and governance to ensure data is consistent, documented, and trustworthy.

You will also work on ETL/ELT pipelines to move data into a cloud data warehouse, monitor data quality, and enable AI/LLM-powered applications with properly scoped context.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of data engineering or data architecture experience in production.
• Strong SQL skills and cloud data warehouse experience (Snowflake and MSFT SQL Server preferred).
• Experience building ETL/ELT pipelines.
• Solid understanding of data governance fundamentals: classification, access control, and documentation.
• Understanding of how AI/LLM applications consume data and context windows.
• Excellent communication and ability to be a go-to data resource.

Responsibilities

• Design canonical, well-documented data models for core entities to enable a single source of truth.
• Evolve schemas as business needs change while balancing long-term maintainability.
• Set and enforce data modeling standards and documentation practices.
• Build and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines moving data into a cloud data warehouse.
• Monitor data quality and pipeline health, troubleshooting at the source.
• Integrate new data sources and vendor APIs into the existing architecture.
• Define data classification standards for sensitive data across systems.
• Support data lineage and access control with thorough metadata and documentation.
• Maintain a data dictionary and usable documentation for other teams.
• Design data structures for AI/LLM consumption with well-scoped, accurate context.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and business teams to translate requirements.

Skills

SQL

Data modeling

Data governance

AI/LLM basics

Communication

Tools

Snowflake

MSFT SQL Server

ETL/ELT

Power BI

GitHub Actions

AWS

Python

Job description

In Houston, TX, PSS Cross Country Infrastructure Solutions is hiring a Data Engineer to design and maintain the data architecture that supports business systems and analytics. This role focuses on how data is modeled, transported, classified, and governed across the organization, including collaboration to keep data consistent, documented, and trustworthy. You will also maintain working knowledge of how AI-powered applications consume structured context, without needing to be a machine learning specialist.

What you’ll do

• Design canonical, well-documented data models for core business entities such as customers, projects, products, contracts, and finance, enabling multiple systems and teams to use a single source of truth.
• Evaluate and evolve schemas as business needs and systems change, balancing new requirements with long-term maintainability.
• Set and enforce data modeling standards, including naming conventions and documentation practices.
• Build and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines to move data from sources including ERP, CRM, operational databases, vendor feeds, and files into a cloud data warehouse.
• Monitor data quality and pipeline health, troubleshoot issues, and resolve problems at the source rather than downstream.
• Integrate new data sources, including third-party platforms and vendor APIs, into the existing architecture without duplicating efforts or creating conflicting versions of the same data.
• Define and apply data classification standards for sensitive financial, contractual, and customer data across systems.
• Support access control and audit needs by maintaining traceable data lineage and usage information.
• Maintain a data dictionary and supporting documentation so other teams can locate and trust the data they need.
• Design data structures and access patterns with intended consumption in mind, including AI/LLM-powered applications that require well-scoped, accurate context.
• Apply minimum-necessary-data principles when structuring datasets exposed through AI features, working with application and security teams.
• Stay current on how retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and LLM context assembly work to inform schema and access decisions.
• Partner with engineering, product, and business teams to translate reporting and application requirements into sound data models.
• Act as a technical point of contact for data-related questions across multiple concurrent projects.

Required qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in data engineering or data architecture, including hands-on schema and data model design in a production environment.
• Strong SQL skills and experience with a cloud data warehouse; Snowflake and MSFT SQL Server are preferred.
• Experience with the SQL query language.
• Experience building and maintaining ETL/ELT pipelines.
• Solid understanding of data governance fundamentals, including classification, access control, and documentation.
• Working knowledge of how modern AI/LLM applications consume data, including context windows and retrieval-augmented generation basics, with an emphasis on why minimizing and scoping data matters.
• Strong communication skills and comfort serving as a go-to resource for data questions.

Technologies

• SQL
• Snowflake
• MSFT SQL Server
• ETL/ELT
• Power BI
• GitHub Actions
• AWS
• Python

Preferred and nice to have

• Preferred: Experience in a distribution, industrial supply, or ERP-adjacent environment.
• Preferred: Familiarity with integrating third-party SaaS platforms via API.
• Preferred: Experience with CI/CD tooling (for example, GitHub Actions) and cloud application environments (for example, AWS).
• Preferred: Experience consolidating multiple existing data models into a shared standard.
• Nice to have: Exposure to BI/reporting tools such as Power BI and how they consume the underlying data model.
• Nice to have: Working knowledge of Python.

Location: Houston, TX (onsite). Minimum experience: 4 years.