Lead Data Engineer: Real-Time Pipelines & Leadership

Empower Retirement, LLC; Greenwood Village (CO); On-site; USD 132,000 - 191,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) plan with company matching

Paid time off and holidays

Volunteer time

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Empower Retirement, LLC is seeking a Lead Data Engineer in Colorado to architect and optimize scalable data pipelines, real-time ingestion, and enterprise data platforms. The role demands independent leadership, mentoring, and collaboration with architects to meet enterprise standards.

The position emphasizes streaming technologies, schema management, and governance while driving automation and platform improvements across teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field or equivalent experience.
• 6-8+ years of data engineering experience with enterprise-scale platforms.
• 6-8+ years hands-on with Apache Kafka, Confluent Cloud, AWS Kinesis, or Apache Pulsar.
• Advanced proficiency in Python, PySpark, and SQL.
• Proficiency in Python, Java, Scala, or Go, with production experience using Flink, Kafka Streams, or Spark Structured Streaming.
• Strong experience with AWS and modern data platforms.
• Deep expertise in CDC tools such as Debezium and Kafka Connect, including log-based replication mechanisms.
• Hands-on experience integrating streaming events into lakehouse formats and cloud data warehouses.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and implementation of advanced data pipelines, ingestion frameworks, and real-time streaming solutions.
• Build, optimize, and maintain scalable Kafka producers and consumers for sub-second latency.
• Configure CDC solutions across relational and NoSQL systems into Kafka topics.
• Develop stream-processing solutions using Flink, Spark Streaming, Kafka Streams, or dbt-mesh architectures.
• Implement schema evolution policies with Confluent Schema Registry and ensure idempotency across consumers.
• Lead technical execution of data initiatives and mentor engineers.
• Collaborate with architects and stakeholders on architectural decisions.
• Enforce data governance, security, quality, and data contracts.

Skills

Python

SQL

Spark

Kafka

Data governance

Agile

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

Debezium

AWS

Confluent Cloud

Flink

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Job description

Empower Retirement, LLC is seeking a Lead Data Engineer in Colorado to architect and optimize scalable data pipelines, real-time ingestion, and enterprise data platforms. The role demands independent leadership, mentoring, and collaboration with architects to meet enterprise standards.

The position emphasizes streaming technologies, schema management, and governance while driving automation and platform improvements across teams.