Data Engineer - Senior

Orchard LLC; Quantico (VA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Orchard LLC is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to support a major federal modernization program in Huntsville, AL or Quantico, VA.

The role will design, build, optimize, and operate petabyte-scale data pipelines, ensuring secure, reliable data flows for legacy-to-cloud migration. It requires a TS clearance, US citizenship, and 8+ years of data engineering experience. Collaboration with cloud and migration teams is essential.

Qualifications

• Active Top Secret clearance and U.S. citizenship are required.
• Bachelor's degree and 8+ years in data engineering or large-scale data operations.
• Hands-on experience building pipelines for structured and unstructured data.
• Strong data modeling, transformation logic, and automation skills.
• Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS preferred), DevSecOps tooling, and scripting languages.
• Excellent analytical, documentation, and problem-solving abilities.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize scalable data pipelines enabling ingestion, transformation, and loading of large datasets.
• Lead data cleansing, normalization, enrichment, and validation across legacy sources; coordinate automated testing.
• Collaborate with AWS Cloud, DevSecOps, migration engineers to integrate data flows with program architecture.
• Mentor Data Migration Engineers and Mid-Level Data Engineers on pipeline operations and data best practices.
• Produce detailed documentation including pipeline diagrams, mapping specs, data dictionaries, and process guides.

Skills

Top Secret Clearance

U.S. Citizenship

Data engineering

ETL development

Cloud environments

Scripting languages

Data modeling

Documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

AWS

DevSecOps tooling

ETL frameworks

Job description

Data Engineer - Senior Huntsville, AL or Quantico, VA US Citizenship Required. Must have an Active Top Secret Clearance Required @Orchard is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to support large-scale data engineering and migration activities for a major federal modernization program. This role is responsible for designing, developing, optimizing, and operating data pipelines supporting petabyte-scale migration, transformation, and storage of structured and unstructured datasets. The Senior Data Engineer ensures data flows are reliable, repeatable, secure, and aligned to architectural standards required for transferring legacy datasets into modern cloud environments. This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute to a high-impact National Security mission, while getting hands-on experience with cutting-edge technology.

Responsibilities

• Data Pipeline Development & Engineering: Design, build, and optimize scalable data pipelines enabling ingestion, transformation, and loading of large datasets. Implement ETL/ELT processes supporting multi-source, multi-format data migration. Develop data models, schemas, mapping artifacts, and integration structures for legacy-to-cloud migration. Enhance automation, performance tuning, throughput, and fault tolerance within cloud-based pipelines.
• Data Quality, Transformation & Validation: Lead data cleansing, normalization, enrichment, and validation efforts across legacy sources. Perform root-cause analysis on data anomalies and guide corrective actions. Coordinate with QA/Test Engineers to embed data validation and automated testing into pipeline workflows.
• Cloud Integration & System Support: Support data engineering activities within AWS cloud environments (preferred). Collaborate with Cloud Engineers, DevSecOps teams, Migration Engineers, and system developers to integrate data flows with program architecture. Ensure compliance with security, logging, auditing, and handling requirements across environments.
• Technical Leadership & Collaboration: Mentor Data Migration Engineers and Mid-Level Data Engineers on pipeline operations and data best practices. Participate in technical reviews, sprint activities, and architecture discussions. Support migration readiness assessments, backlog refinement, and multi-team planning.
• Documentation, Reporting & Risk Management: Produce detailed documentation including pipeline diagrams, mapping specs, data dictionaries, and process guides. Track migration progress, pipeline performance, data quality status, and operational risks. Identify blockers affecting migration throughput and support timely mitigation.

Required Qualifications

• Must have Active Top Secret Security Clearance.
• U.S. Citizenship.
• Bachelor's degree and 8+ years of experience in data engineering, ETL development, or large-scale data operations.
• Hands‑on experience building pipelines for structured/unstructured data across enterprise environments.
• Strong proficiency in data modeling, transformation logic, and automation.
• Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS preferred), DevSecOps tooling, and scripting languages.
• Excellent analytical, documentation, and problem‑solving skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with petabyte-scale or multi-system migration programs.
• Background supporting DOJ, FBI, Intelligence Community, or national-security customers.
• Experience with CI/CD integration, automated testing pipelines, or micro-service architectures.
• Advanced knowledge of ETL frameworks, distributed compute tools, or cloud-native data services.

Established in 2010, @Orchard LLC has an exceptional reputation, providing staffing solutions to time-sensitive talent scarcity issues to deliver better talent management ROI. Our specialty lies in the critical area of program talent acquisition and resource management, not in one narrow skillset, but across many areas of technical and functional delivery. To learn more about our other exciting opportunities, visit our Jobs Page at www.atOrchard.com.