Data Engineer (1042) - Data Enablement - DataSF, Office of City Administrator

City and County of San Francisco; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

City and County of San Francisco is hiring a Data Engineer to join DataSF. You will build and maintain production data pipelines, develop data models in dbt on Snowflake, and help migrate publishing workflows to the unified platform. The role requires hands-on coding, data accuracy, and collaboration with analysts and senior engineers.

The team emphasizes a hybrid work schedule and improving city data infrastructure to power data-driven city services and transparency.

Qualifications

• Associate degree or equivalent in CS/IS/Engineering or related field.
• At least 1 year of experience analyzing, configuring, or maintaining data systems.
• Completion of the 1010 Information Systems Trainee Program may substitute for the degree.
• Overtime hours are not counted toward full-time employment calculation.
• Familiarity with SQL and at least one programming language (e.g., Python).

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain production data pipelines with tests and docs.
• Develop dbt models transforming raw data into clean tables for analysts.
• Create financial and workforce data models to support budgeting and planning.
• Support platform cost and usage reporting for departments.
• Help transition publishing workflows to the platform, including open data feeds.
• Investigate data quality issues and add tests to prevent recurrences.
• Assist analysts onboarding by explaining the models and usage.
• Participate in code reviews and grow as a reviewer.

Skills

SQL

Python

Data pipelines

Education

Associate degree in CS/CE/IS

Tools

dbt

Snowflake

Terraform

Job description

Company Description

Permanent Exempt (PEX): Full Time position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive civil service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the appointment officer. The anticipated duration of this project position is thirty-six (36) months and will not result in an eligible list or permanent civil service hiring. Project-based positions cannot be ongoing or exceed 36 months.

Recruitment Details

• Application Opening: Wednesday, September 23, 2026
• Application Deadline: Wednesday, September 30, 2026 at 11:59pm PST

About the Office of the City Administrator

The Office of the City Administrator includes 20+ agencies and over 1,000 dedicated staff who provide essential services to San Francisco residents and businesses and improve the administration of government.

Our Mission

The City Administrator's Office is strongly committed to ensuring efficient and effective government services, increasing the City’s safety and resiliency, strengthening the local economy, supporting equity and inclusion, and optimizing the City’s capital planning and infrastructure.

Our Vision

We are committed to ensuring that the City's services are inclusive, efficient, equitable, and culturally competent for San Franciscans of all races, ethnic backgrounds, religions, and sexual orientations. This commitment requires comprehensive review and thorough analysis of existing practices and policies to remove barriers to real inclusion.

We are also committed to ensuring that the Department is a safe, equitable, and inclusive workplace for individuals of all races. This includes creating opportunities for hiring, promotion, retention, training, and development, for all employees, including but not limited to Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).

About DataSF

Want to build robust and scalable data infrastructure to power data-driven City services? Join the DataSF team to empower and expand the use of data in government!

DataSF's mission is to transform the way San Francisco works with data. We believe that data, when harnessed effectively, can improve transparency, resident engagement, and government performance. We are committed to removing barriers and making it easier for all people to access services and knowledge, and we actively seek team members whose diverse life experiences reflect the residents we serve. The department has a hybrid work schedule.

DataSF runs the City’s open data program and the Unified Data Platform (UDP), the shared space where departments build, manage, and use trusted data together. Our work supports citywide priorities such as permitting, street coordination, and public safety. We are a small team with a citywide mandate, and we are hiring for roles that will help the platform grow well and serve more departments.

Job Description

The Data Engineer will be part of our data enablement practice, the portion of the team that helps City departments bring their data onto the platform and put it to work. This position will build and maintain production data pipelines, develop and test data models in dbt on Snowflake, and transition publishing workflows from legacy systems to the platform. The role works closely with senior engineers who provide code review and hands-on mentorship, and spends time with department analysts to understand data at its source. This is a hands-on engineering role—you don’t need years of experience, but you do need to have built things before, care deeply about data accuracy, and learn quickly.

Important and Essential Duties

• Build and maintain production data pipelines that bring department data onto the platform, complete with tests and documentation so they can be run and maintained by others.
• Develop data models in dbt that transform raw department data into clean, well-documented tables relied on by analysts across the City.
• Create financial and budget data products- models built on the City’s financial and workforce systems that support migration off legacy reporting and provide departments with accurate numbers for budgeting and planning.
• Support platform cost and usage reporting so the team and partner departments can understand platform expenses and how resources are used.
• Help transition publishing workflows from legacy systems onto the platform, including public-facing open data feeds.
• Investigate and resolve data quality issues by tracing errors to their source, fixing problems, and adding tests to prevent future occurrences.
• Support department onboarding by helping analysts understand and use the models you build.
• Participate in code review and grow into reviewing others’ code as your experience increases.

Qualifications

Education

An associate degree in computer science, computer engineering, information systems, or a closely related field from an accredited college or university OR its equivalent in terms of total course credits/units [i.e., at least sixty (60) semester or ninety (90) quarter credits/units with a minimum of twenty (20) semester or thirty (30) quarter credits/units in one of the fields above or a closely-related field].

Experience

One (1) year of experience analyzing, installing, configuring, enhancing, and/or maintaining the components of a system or platform.

Substitution

One year of additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree.

Completion of the 1010 Information Systems Trainee Program may be substituted for the required degree.

Note(s)

• One-year full-time employment is considered equivalent to 2000 hours (2000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40 hour work week). Any overtime hours that you work above forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.
• Applicants must meet minimum qualification requirements by the final filing date unless otherwise noted.
• Every application is reviewed to ensure that you meet the minimum qualifications as listed in the job ad. Please review our articles on Employment Application and Minimum Qualifications and Verification of Experience and/or Education for considerations taken when reviewing applications.

Desirable Qualifications

• Experience building real data-moving or data-transforming projects - whether from a job, internship, or personal work and the ability to explain how they were designed and what challenges arose.
• Ability to write SQL and familiarity with at least one programming language, ideally Python; strong attention to numerical accuracy and instinct for identifying when data doesn’t look right.
• Experience with financial, budget, or ERP data is a plus, as is familiarity with dbt, Snowflake, or Terraform.
• Strong potential and intuition working with data, with the ability to learn new tools and the platform stack on the job.

Additional Information

Selection Procedures

The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements. Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to comparatively evaluation qualifications of candidates. If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the needs of the Department will be invited for an interview.

Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed to advance through all of the steps in the selection process.

Verification

• Please make sure it is clear in your application exactly how you meet the minimum qualifications.
• Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point in the application and/or departmental selection process.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.