Senior Data Engineer

Tavant; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Tavant is seeking a Data Engineer to design, build, and scale a modern cloud data platform centered on Snowflake and AWS. The role focuses on ontologies, semantic models, metadata, and governed data products to support analytics, AI, and business intelligence.

You will implement data pipelines using Informatica, dbt, and Iceberg, and collaborate with stakeholders to define data entities and governance. The position offers full-time work in a cloud-enabled environment.

Qualifications

• Strong data engineering fundamentals across pipelines and platforms.
• Experience with enterprise data platforms and governance concepts.
• Ability to work with ontologies, semantic models, metadata, and governed data products.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines across data sources.
• Develop data ingestion and ETL/ELT processes using Informatica.
• Build transformation logic using dbt with tests and documentation.
• Design and manage data structures in Snowflake as the central platform.
• Work with AWS-based data services and infrastructure.
• Support data architecture with Iceberg managed tables and cataloging.
• Use Snowflake Catalog and Horizon for metadata management and governance.
• Collaborate with data architects, analysts, and stakeholders to define data products.
• Understand business concepts, entities, relationships, and terminology.
• Support ontology-driven modeling and semantic mappings.
• Translate concepts into logical/physical data models and reusable products.
• Implement data quality checks, lineage, observability, and governance.
• Support data products for analytics, news/asset intelligence, and AI use cases.
• Ensure security, privacy, access control, performance, and reliability.

Skills

Data engineering

Data modeling

ETL/ELT

Cloud data platform

SQL

Python

Stakeholder collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

Snowflake

AWS

Informatica

dbt

Apache Iceberg

Job description

We are looking for a Data Engineer to help design, build, and scale a modern cloud data platform centered on Snowflake and AWS. The ideal candidate has strong data engineering fundamentals, experience with enterprise data platforms, and the ability to work with ontologies, semantic models, metadata, and governed data products.

This role will support strategic data initiatives using Snowflake, AWS, Iceberg managed tables, Snowflake Catalog, Snowflake Horizon, Informatica, and dbt. The Data Engineer will help create trusted, reusable data assets that support applications, analytics, AI, and business intelligence use cases.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data sources.
• Develop data ingestion and extract-load processes using Informatica, aligning with enterprise standards and existing in-house capabilities.
• Build transformation logic using dbt, including modular models, testing, documentation, and deployment workflows.
• Design and manage data structures in Snowflake, with Snowflake positioned as the central strategic data platform.
• Work with AWS-based data services and infrastructure, supporting applications and data products running in the organization's AWS environment.
• Support data architecture using Iceberg managed tables, including open table formats, interoperability, cataloging, and governed access patterns.
• Use Snowflake Catalog and Snowflake Horizon to support metadata management, data discovery, governance, lineage, policy enforcement, and trusted data sharing.
• Collaborate with data architects, governance teams, analysts, application teams, and business stakeholders to define trusted data products.
• Work with domain experts to understand business concepts, entities, relationships, and terminology.
• Support ontology-driven modeling, including entity definitions, taxonomies, relationships, business glossaries, and semantic mappings.
• Translate business and domain concepts into logical data models, physical data models, and reusable data products.
• Implement data quality checks, validation rules, lineage, observability, and governance controls.
• Support data products and applications such as news intelligence, asset intelligence, analytics, and AI-enabled use cases.
• Ensure data solutions meet enterprise requirements for security, privacy, access control, performance, and reliability.

Required Skills

• Strong experience in data engineering, data modeling, ETL/ELT, and cloud data platform development.
• Hands-on experience with Snowflake, including data modeling, performance optimization, access controls, and scalable warehouse/lakehouse patterns.
• Experience working in AWS cloud environments.
• Experience with Informatica or similar enterprise data integration platforms for extract-load and ingestion patterns.
• Experience with dbt for data transformations, testing, documentation, and analytics engineering workflows.
• Understanding of Apache Iceberg or open table formats, including managed tables, schema evolution, interoperability, and catalog-based access.
• Familiarity with data cataloging, governance, lineage, metadata management, and policy-driven data access.
• Understanding of ontology, semantic modeling, taxonomies, business glossaries, or knowledge graph concepts.
• Strong SQL skills and experience with Python or another data engineering language.
• Ability to work with business stakeholders to define data entities, relationships, metrics, and data product requirements.
• Strong communication, documentation, and problem-solving skills.