Senior Data Architect / Engineer

Strategic ACI; Springfield (VA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Strategic ACI seeks a Senior Data Architect/Engineer to design, build, and govern the Enterprise Data Layer of a Digital Engineering Ecosystem supporting NGA. You will own Data Fabric and Data Mesh, APIs, and governance across domains, leading major program workstreams under time and budget constraints.

This senior engineering role requires hands-on experience with diverse databases and data pipelines, strong API skills, and the ability to deliver quality artifacts for release across the

Qualifications

• Active TS clearance, with SCI eligibility and CI polygraph within 30 days.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of data architecture/engineering experience, including enterprise-scale data integration.
• Hands-on experience with relational, graph, and/or vector databases (PostgreSQL, Neo4j, pgvector) and data pipeline orchestration (Argo Workflows, Airflow).
• Experience designing data mesh/data fabric architectures, metadata cataloging, and search infrastructure (OpenSearch, Elasticsearch).
• Strong API design experience using OpenAPI/REST standards and integration with cloud or on-prem data lakes.

Responsibilities

• Design and stand up the enterprise Data Fabric and Data Mesh as the authoritative control point for engineering data.
• Develop and maintain the data model, metadata model, ontology, schemas, and translation services.
• Build and operate data pipelines integrating relational, vector, and graph databases, search, and catalog capabilities.
• Implement standardized APIs (OpenAPI/REST) and data lake integration to enable secure data sharing.
• Deliver dashboards and portfolio management views supporting EA & BI stakeholder needs.
• Support governance controls for data consistency and lifecycle across programs.
• Produce release-based deliverables including deployment source code and schema artifacts.

Skills

Data architecture

Enterprise data integration

API design

Data mesh

Data fabric

Kubernetes familiarity

OpenAPI/REST

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / Data Engineering / Information Systems

Tools

PostgreSQL

Neo4j

pgvector

Argo Workflows

Airflow

OpenSearch

OpenMetadata

Job description

Strategic ACI is seeking a Senior Data Architect / Engineer to design, build, and govern the Enterprise Data Layer of a Digital Engineering Ecosystem supporting NGA — the authoritative control point (ASoT foundation) for engineering data spanning requirements, architectures, models, cost, schedule, test, and operational artifacts.

This role owns the Data Fabric and Data Mesh implementation, integration APIs, and the data model/ontology governance that allow the ecosystem to expand beyond systems engineering & architecture (SE&A) data into financial management, contract management, workforce, portfolio, budget/schedule, and risk/mission performance domains over time. As a senior-level engineering role, this position leads the technical/engineering portion of major program workstreams and ensures deliverables meet established quality standards within time and budget constraints.

Salary will be commensurate within the advertised range, based on applicable qualifications.

Responsibilities:

• Design and stand up the enterprise Data Fabric and Data Mesh as the authoritative control point for engineering data, enforcing a governed ASoT and continuous Digital Thread synchronization across tools and programs.
• Develop and maintain the data model, metadata model, ontology, schemas, and translation services that standardize enterprise architecture and engineering data.
• Build and operate data pipelines integrating relational, vector, and graph databases, search, and catalog capabilities (e.g., PostgreSQL, TimescaleDB, pgvector, Neo4j, OpenSearch, OpenMetadata, Argo Workflows).
• Implement standardized APIs (OpenAPI/REST) and data lake integration (on-prem or cloud object storage) to enable federated, secure data sharing across organizational and TS/SCI boundaries.
• Deliver dashboards and portfolio management views supporting Enterprise Architecture & Business Intelligence stakeholder needs.
• Support baseline governance controls for data consistency, lifecycle alignment, and distributed execution across programs and mission teams.
• Produce release-based deliverables including deployment source code, data model and ontology documentation, and schema artifacts for the Data Fabric.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Active TS clearance, with SCI eligibility and the ability to pass a CI polygraph within 30 days.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or additional relevant experience in lieu of a degree.
• 10+ years of data architecture/engineering experience, including enterprise-scale data integration.
• Hands‑on experience with relational, graph, and/or vector databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, Neo4j, pgvector) and data pipeline orchestration (e.g., Argo Workflows, Airflow, or comparable).
• Experience designing data mesh/data fabric architectures, metadata cataloging, and search infrastructure (e.g., OpenSearch, Elasticsearch).
• Strong API design experience using OpenAPI/REST standards and integration with cloud or on-prem data lakes.

Desired:

• Experience supporting NGA, DoD, or Intelligence Community enterprise data or digital engineering programs.
• Experience with BI/dashboarding tools such as Power BI or Superset for portfolio and acquisition management reporting.
• Familiarity with digital engineering data domains (requirements, cost, schedule, test, operations) and Digital Thread concepts.
• Exposure to Kubernetes-based, cloud-native deployment of data services (AWS EKS, Azure AKS, or on-prem RKE2/NKP).
• Data governance certifications or equivalent experience with IC/DoD data standards and interoperability requirements.