Senior Data Engineer

Systems Planning and Analysis; Fort Wayne (IN); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Systems Planning and Analysis seeks a Senior Data Engineer / Integration Specialist to design and optimize secure enterprise data-ingestion, transformation, and integration capabilities for HQ USSTRATCOM at Offutt AFB.

You will lead data engineering, integration, and enterprise-scale solutions across C3 and NC3 modernization initiatives, building real-time and batch pipelines with strong data governance and IL5/IL6 compliance. Expect collaboration with diverse teams and mentoring of engineers.

Qualifications

• U.S. citizenship with Top Secret clearance and SCI eligibility.
• Onsite full-time work five days a week at Offutt AFB, NE.
• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field.
• 6–10 years in data engineering/integration with 3+ years in DoD/IC missions.
• Proficient in Python/Java and designing ETL/ELT pipelines.
• Experience with Kafka/NiFi/Spark and relational or NoSQL databases.
• Experience delivering RESTful APIs and gRPC in distributed systems.
• Cloud experience (AWS/Azure/GCP) and DevSecOps pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead data engineering, integration, and enterprise-scale data solutions.
• Design secure, scalable data-ingestion, transformation, and pipelines.
• Architect real-time and batch data flows across legacy and cloud systems.
• Ensure data quality, lineage, governance, and IL5/IL6 compliance.
• Develop APIs, messaging middleware, schemas, and interface docs.
• Mentor junior engineers and collaborate with stakeholders to translate needs into architectures.
• Support evaluations, experiments, and capability prototypes for data-centric solutions.
• Produce technical documentation and senior-leader briefings.

Skills

Python

Java

ETL/ELT pipelines

RESTful APIs

gRPC

Apache Kafka

NiFi

Spark

PostgreSQL

Cloud platforms

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Ansible

CI/CD

Job description

Senior Data Engineer / Integration Specialist responsible for designing and optimizing secure enterprise data-ingestion, transformation, and integration capabilities for HQ USSTRATCOM at Offutt AFB.

Responsibilities

• Act as senior technical analyst for data engineering, data integration, and enterprise-scale data solutions supporting Command, Control, and Communications (C3) and NC3 modernization and strategic deterrence missions.
• Lead design, development, and optimization of secure, scalable data-ingestion, transformation, and integration pipelines supporting testing, experimentation, and rapid prototyping of new C3 and NC3 capabilities.
• Architect real-time and batch data-flow systems to enable data exchange across legacy Department of War (DoW) Nuclear Command-and-Control (NC2) systems, sensors, platforms, and modern cloud environments.
• Integrate structured and unstructured sources into authoritative datasets while ensuring data quality, lineage, governance, and compliance with Impact Level 5 (IL5) and Impact Level 6 (IL6) security requirements.
• Develop and maintain APIs, messaging middleware, schemas, data models, and interface control documents to support system-to-system integration.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers, analysts, and integration specialists, supporting growth and consistent engineering practices.
• Collaborate with systems engineers, software developers, modelers, and mission stakeholders to translate operational needs into data-driven technical requirements and architectures.
• Support technology evaluations, experiments, demonstrations, and capability-prototype assessments focused on data-centric solutions and distributed architectures.
• Produce high-quality technical documentation, data-flow diagrams, engineering artifacts, and senior-leader briefings covering findings and recommendations.

Requirements

• U.S. citizenship and active Top Secret (TS) clearance with SCI eligibility, plus eligibility on day one for Nuclear Command and Control – Extremely Sensitive Information (NC2-ESI), NATO, and Special Access Required (SAR) programs; maintain all required clearances and program eligibilities throughout employment.
• Ability to work full-time onsite, 5 days a week, at Offutt Air Force Base (AFB) in Offutt AFB, NE.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field.
• 6–10 years of progressive experience in data engineering, data integration, or software development, including 3+ years supporting DoW, DoD, or Intelligence Community missions.
• Demonstrated expertise designing and implementing complex ETL/ELT pipelines and integration workflows.
• Strong proficiency in Python, Java, or comparable enterprise data engineering languages.
• Hands-on experience with streaming and distributed data frameworks: Apache Kafka, NiFi, Spark, or similar.
• Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server) and NoSQL/graph databases.
• Proven experience developing and consuming RESTful APIs and gRPC in distributed architectures.
• Experience with cloud technologies (AWS, Azure, GCP), hybrid environments, DevSecOps pipelines, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible), and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).

Technologies

• Python, Java
• ETL, ELT
• Apache Kafka, NiFi, Spark
• PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server
• RESTful APIs, gRPC
• AWS, Azure, GCP
• DevSecOps, CI/CD
• Terraform, Ansible
• Docker, Kubernetes

Desired Qualifications

• Experience supporting USSTRATCOM, NC3, or strategic C3 modernization efforts.
• Knowledge of data-centric modernization, Digital Mission Engineering, and Authoritative Sources of Truth frameworks.
• Experience with graph databases (Neo4j, JanusGraph) for modeling complex interdependencies.
• Familiarity with data governance, data quality frameworks, and lineage tools.
• Experience working within IL5/IL6 classified environments.