Lead Data Engineer - ETL/ELT

First Citizens; Raleigh (NC); Remote; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

First Citizens Bank is seeking a Lead Data Engineer to design, build, and operate production-grade data pipelines in a cloud environment. You will own end-to-end delivery, set engineering standards, and mentor junior engineers to raise the team’s capabilities.

The role requires hands-on experience with ELT architectures, Snowflake, dbt, Python-based pipelines, and AWS services. Candidates should demonstrate leadership in design discussions and CI/CD-driven deployments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree and a minimum of 6 years in advanced data engineering, cloud platforms, and project or technical leadership.
• Or High School Diploma with a minimum of 10 years in advanced data engineering, data technologies, cloud platforms, and project or technical leadership.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate data pipelines using Medallion Architecture (Bronze, Silver, Gold).
• Own ingestion, transformation, governance, testing, and publishing layers.
• Ensure reliability, scalability, performance, and cost efficiency of pipelines.
• Implement CDC and batch ingestion using Qlik Replicate.
• Design ingestion patterns for databases, files, and APIs.
• Build reusable Python-based pipeline components and frameworks.
• Develop dbt models using advanced SQL and Jinja templating.
• Implement automated testing for data quality, schema validation, and freshness.
• Enable CI/CD-driven transformation deployments.
• Implement Snowpipe, Tasks, Streams, and Stored Procedures.
• Design and enforce RBAC, dynamic masking, and tag-based access control.
• Ensure data security and compliance through platform-level controls.
• Build and deploy data components using AWS services such as S3, Lambda, ECS Fargate, Glue, DynamoDB, and IAM, or equivalent Azure services.
• Collaborate on CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and environment promotion.
• Serve as a technical leader and mentor junior and mid-level data engineers.
• Lead design discussions, code reviews, and technical decision-making.
• Establish and enforce engineering best practices and standards.

Skills

Medallion Architecture

CDC Ingestion

Python

dbt

SQL

Jinja templating

CI/CD

Data governance

Cloud AWS

RBAC

Automation

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in a related field

High School Diploma / GED

Tools

Qlik Replicate

Snowflake

dbt Cloud

AWS

Job description

Overview

This is a remote role that may only be hired in the following location(s): North Carolina, Arizona & Texas.

We are seeking a Lead Data Engineer with deep, hands-on experience designing, building, and operating production-grade data platforms. This role is targeted at senior engineers who have personally implemented end-to-end data pipelines and can mentor junior engineers through example. The Lead Data Engineer will be responsible not only for delivery, but also for setting engineering standards, patterns, and best practices across the data platform.

This is a highly technical role. Candidates must have real-world, production experience with modern ELT architectures, Snowflake, dbt, Qlik Replicate, Python-based pipeline development, and cloud-native services.

Responsibilities & Qualifications

Duties & Responsibilities:

End-to-End Data Pipeline Ownership

• Design, build, and operate data pipelines using Medallion Architecture (Bronze, Silver, Gold).
• Own ingestion, transformation, governance, testing, and publishing layers.
• Ensure reliability, scalability, performance, and cost efficiency of pipelines.

Data Ingestion & Integration

• Implement CDC and batch ingestion using Qlik Replicate.
• Design ingestion patterns for databases, files, and APIs.
• Build reusable Python-based pipeline components and frameworks.

Transformation, Modeling & Testing

• Develop dbt models using advanced SQL and Jinja templating.
• Implement automated testing for data quality, schema validation, and freshness.
• Enable CI/CD-driven transformation deployments.

Snowflake Platform Engineering & Governance

• Implement Snowpipe, Tasks, Streams, and Stored Procedures.
• Design and enforce RBAC, dynamic masking, and tag-based access control.
• Ensure data security and compliance through platform-level controls.

Cloud Engineering

• Build and deploy data components using AWS services such as S3, Lambda, ECS Fargate, Glue, DynamoDB, and IAM, or equivalent Azure services.
• Collaborate on CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and environment promotion.

Leadership & Mentorship

• Serve as a technical leader and mentor junior and mid-level data engineers.
• Lead design discussions, code reviews, and technical decision-making.
• Establish and enforce engineering best practices and standards.

Education & Experience

Bachelor’s Degree and a minimum of 6 years of experience in Advanced Data Engineering, data technologies, cloud platforms, and project or technical leadership

OR
High School Diploma or GED and a minimum of 10 years of experience in Advanced Data Engineering, data technologies, cloud platforms, and project or technical leadership

Preferred Qualifications

• Designing and operating Medallion Architecture data pipelines
• Data ingestion using Qlik Replicate (CDC and batch)
• Custom Python data pipeline development
• dbt Mesh Architecture experience
• dbt Cloud transformations, testing, SQL, and Jinja templating
• Snowflake ingestion and platform features (Snowpipe, Tasks, Stored Procedures)
• Data governance in Snowflake including RBAC, Tokenization, and dynamic data masking
• Release management, code deployment, disaster recovery activities
• Cloud development using AWS or equivalent Azure services

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Additional Information

Benefits are an integral part of total rewards and First Citizens Bank is committed to providing a competitive, thoughtfully designed and quality benefits program to meet the needs of our associates. More information can be found at https://jobs.firstcitizens.com/benefits.