Senior AI Data Engineer – Data Pipelines & Vector AI

General Dynamics Information Technology; Crystal City (TX); On-site; USD 174,000 - 236,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401K with company match

Paid time off

Medical, dental, vision plans

Job summary

Iron EagleX is seeking a Senior Principal AI Data Engineer to design, build, and operate data pipelines ingesting high-volume, multi-source data for AI/ML processes in Crystal City, VA. You will enable model-ready datasets, embeddings, and prompts, implement scalable storage layers such as a data lakehouse and vector stores, and support low-latency retrieval for inference and RAG applications.

You will collaborate with software, analytics, and product teams to power AI capabilities and scalable

Qualifications

• Apache Airflow for data pipelines and ETL.
• Python programming expertise.
• ElasticSearch/OpenSearch for indexing and search functionalities.
• Understanding of vector databases, embeddings, and vector search.
• Experience with event-driven architecture and microservices development.
• Hands-on experience with cloud services (e.g. MinIO).
• Strong understanding of data pipeline orchestration and workflow automation.
• Working knowledge of Linux environments and database optimization techniques.
• Strong understanding of version control with Git.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and implement scalable data pipelines and ETL processes using Apache Airflow, focused on data for AI.
• Build and tune search and retrieval capabilities using ElasticSearch/OpenSearch, including indexing strategies and relevance optimization.
• Enable low-latency retrieval for AI inference and RAG applications through optimized data access and caching.
• Collaborate with analytics teams to define requirements, schemas, and interfaces for downstream consumption.
• Use Git for version control, peer code reviews, CI/CD workflows, and reproducible pipeline deployments.
• Operate within Linux environments and perform performance tuning across pipeline components, storage layers, and compute resources.

Skills

Apache Airflow

Python

ElasticSearch/OpenSearch

Vector databases/embeddings

Event-driven architecture

MinIO cloud storage

Linux

Git

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field

Tools

MinIO

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Iron EagleX is seeking a Senior Principal AI Data Engineer to design, build, and operate data pipelines ingesting high-volume, multi-source data for AI/ML processes in Crystal City, VA. You will enable model-ready datasets, embeddings, and prompts, implement scalable storage layers such as a data lakehouse and vector stores, and support low-latency retrieval for inference and RAG applications.

You will collaborate with software, analytics, and product teams to power AI capabilities and scalable