Data Engineer (Faculty Specialist)

University of Maryland; College Park (MD); Remote; USD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

University of Maryland, College Park, is seeking a mid-career to senior Data Engineer for the CATT Lab. You will design, develop, and support dozens of relational and distributed data stores, including Cassandra and Hadoop, while building geospatial data processing for critical infrastructure.

The role emphasizes reliable, scalable platforms and collaboration with application teams. You will work in a team with data scientists, analysts, and engineers, contributing to stable data pipelines,

Qualifications

• B.S. in Computer Science or related field required.
• 2+ years in design, development, and administration of data platform solutions.
• Experience deploying and maintaining production database servers and services.
• Experience leading or supporting complex, high-volume data platforms.
• Experience in a technical team role delivering multiple projects.
• Experience with ETL scripts, APIs, Python, and Java with strong SQL knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Design and deploy data storage and processing solutions.
• Develop data models and schemas for relational and non-relational platforms.
• Build data pipelines to ingest large datasets from APIs and cloud storage.
• Write data retrieval and geospatial queries and procedures.
• Collaborate to optimize data processing performance.
• Support application developers in debugging and tuning queries.
• Estimate task effort and report progress to team lead.
• Participate in Tier II support rotations.

Skills

Python

Java

SQL

ETL

APIs

Technical lead

Education

B.S. in Computer Science or related field

Tools

PostgreSQL

Cassandra

Hadoop

Spark

Iceberg

Sedona

PostGIS

Linux

Bash

Git

Jira

Confluence

Bitbucket

AWS

GCP

Job description

Job Description Summary Organization's Summary Statement: The A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland serves as the catalyst for high-quality research, innovation, and learning, delivering on a promise that all graduates will leave ready to impact the Grand Challenges (e.g., energy, environment, security, and human health) of the 21st century. The Clark School is dedicated to leading and transforming the engineering discipline and profession, to accelerating entrepreneurship, and to transforming research and learning activities into new innovations that benefit millions.

About the CATT Lab The Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) Laboratory is the industry leader for transportation information analysis, visualization, and user interface design. We provide cutting-edge analytics products and an integrated suite of situational awareness tools for transportation practitioners. These products and services are rapidly changing the way governments operate and make decisions. You can learn more about our products at https://ritis.org/. We receive hundreds of gigabytes of transportation data daily, making our petabytes of archived data likely the largest collection of traffic data in the world. Our clients use our software to monitor real-time operations and analyze historical data to generate valuable insights. Our work saves taxpayers money, improves the environment, and saves lives! We’re as passionate about transportation as we are about building great software. We care about building usable, stable, and secure software to analyze massive amounts of data. We use cutting-edge tech to build and maintain our software. We have a mature development process and use industry best practices to build the best software possible. Our team is composed of application developers, analysts, UX designers, data scientists, IT, quality assurance specialists, and customer support operating in an Agile environment. Our office is in College Park near the University of Maryland, easily accessible by DC Metro, MARC train, bus, car, and bike. Local employees are welcome to work in our office, or other locations, with a flexible schedule around our core hours. We also have many employees who are fully remote and work from different states. UMD requires all employees to live in the US, and we periodically bring remote employees to work with colleagues on-site. We believe varied perspectives build better products, are proud to have a diverse team, and encourage people of all backgrounds to apply.

Data Engineer Position Summary

Data Engineer Position Summary: The CATT Lab is seeking a mid‑career or senior Data Engineer to join our Data Platform team. This individual will work to design, develop, and support over 40 relational database instances and distributed Cassandra and Hadoop instances. They will design geospatial data processing solutions for critical infrastructure planning and operations managers, applying their knowledge, skills, and experience to create stable, secure, and reliable data platforms supporting custom data analytics applications.

Essential duties and responsibilities

• Design, develop, deploy, and manage data storage and processing solutions
• Develop data models and schemas for new data sources for both relational and non-relational distributed platforms
• Write and maintain data pipelines to ingest large datasets from APIs and cloud storage to local storage instances
• Write data retrieval, statistical calculation, and geospatial analysis queries and stored procedures
• Assist with analysis and discovery of new datasets for integration into existing internal platforms
• Collaborate with the data platform team to optimize data processing pipeline performance.
• Work with application developers to debug and tune queries for performance
• Estimate effort for work tasks and report on work progress to technical team lead
• Participate in our Tier II Support team rotation

Minimum Qualifications

• Education: B.S. Degree in Computer Science or related field
• Experience: 2+ years relevant professional experience with design, development, and administration of data platform solutions
• Experience deploying, configuring, maintaining, and upgrading production-level database servers and services
• Experience leading or supporting the implementation of complex, high demand and volume data platform solutions.
• Experience in a technical team individual contributor role, responsible for deliverables on multiple projects.
• Experience writing ETL scripts, APIs and standalone applications in both Python and Java with advanced knowledge of SQL.

Preferences

• Experience administering PostgreSQL servers, performance tuning, streaming replication, and PgBouncer failover configuration
• Experience with non-relational data storage and processing solutions like Cassandra, Hadoop, Spark, Iceberg, Sedona etc.
• Experience working with geospatial datasets, using geospatial extensions (such as PostGIS) and querying features.
• Experience with Linux (RHEL), including writing robust Bash scripts.
• Experience architecting and implementing backup and recovery strategies.
• Experience with Git, Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket.
• Experience with cloud platforms including AWS and GCP.
• Experience as a technical lead, overseeing the work product of others and mentoring more junior developers.

Physical Demands

Sedentary work performed in an office environment. Regularly required to communicate and exchange information and to use technology/devices.

Location

Position can be 100% remote (US based only)

Licenses/ Certifications

NA

Additional Job Details

Required Application Materials: Resume

Best Consideration Date

11/19/2026

Posting Close Date

NA

Open Until Filled

YES

Financial Disclosure Required

No

Department

ENGR-Civil-Center for Advanced Transportation Technology

Worker Sub-Type

Faculty Regular Salary Range $100,000- $130,000 Benefits Summary For more information on Regular Faculty benefits, select this link.

Background Checks

Offers of employment are contingent on completion of a background check. Information reported by the background check will not automatically disqualify anyone from employment. Before any adverse decision, the finalist will have an opportunity to provide information to the University regarding disclosable background check information. The University reserves the right to rescind the offer of employment or otherwise decline or terminate employment if the information reported by the background check is deemed incompatible with the position, regardless of when the background check is completed.

Employment Eligibility

The successful candidate must complete employment eligibility verification (on Form I-9) by presenting documents that establish identity and work authorization within the timeframe required by federal immigration law, and where applicable, to demonstrate renewed employment authorization. Failure to complete employment eligibility verification or reverification within the timeframe set forth by law may result in suspension or termination of employment.

EEO Statement

The University of Maryland, College Park is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment. Please read the University’s Equal Employment Opportunity Statement of Policy.

Title IX Non-Discrimination Notice

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