Senior Data Engineer

Mount Indie; Washington (District of Columbia); Presencial; USD 140.000 - 190.000; Tempo integral

Resumo da vaga

Mount Indie seeks a Senior Data Engineer to partner with government teams and technology partners in building an AI-powered data platform. You will own end-to-end data pipelines, ensure data quality, and enable AI workloads in secure environments.

The role emphasizes repeatable data foundations and scalable data products across Kubernetes-based deployments. The role requires hands-on experience with production data pipelines, data governance, and security-conscious design.

Qualificações

• Active TS/SCI clearance.
• 7+ years of data engineering or related field.
• Strong proficiency with SQL and Python for data processing, automation, and integration.
• Hands-on experience building and operating production data pipelines and ETL/ELT workflows.
• Experience with relational databases and modern data storage patterns for structured and unstructured data.
• Experience integrating data through REST APIs, messaging systems, or other distributed integration patterns.
• Knowledge of data modeling, schema design, data quality, lineage, metadata, and governance concepts.
• Experience in cloud-native or containerized environments and collaborating with Kubernetes/platform engineering teams.
• Ability to troubleshoot data issues across infrastructure, applications, APIs, storage, networking, and access controls.
• Ability to work independently, rapidly learn new technologies, and translate ambiguous mission needs into working data solutions.
• GEOINT experience is preferred, not required.

Responsabilidades

• Design, build, and maintain data pipelines ingesting, transforming, validating, and delivering data for AI models and mission applications.
• Integrate structured and unstructured data into enterprise data services across relational, document, vector, and graph tech.
• Work with AI/agent engineers to make data discoverable for RAG, semantic search, and tool-enabled workflows.
• Develop repeatable ingestion and transformation patterns using Python, SQL, APIs, and event-driven architectures.
• Establish data quality, provenance, lineage, and metadata practices for trusted data.
• Design data access patterns that enforce security boundaries while minimizing friction for developers and mission users.
• Collaborate with platform engineers to operationalize data services within Kubernetes/OpenShift and CI/CD pipelines.
• Integrate capabilities like relational stores, JSON/document data, vector search, and knowledge graphs into platform architecture.
• Troubleshoot end-to-end data issues across source systems, pipelines, storage, APIs, identity, networking, and AI apps.
• Work with government engineers and partners to resolve data dependencies and unblock mission delivery.
• Produce documentation, data contracts, schemas, runbooks, and operational standards to repeat patterns across environments.
• Identify recurring data challenges that can be automated or productized.

Conhecimentos

SQL

Python

Data pipelines

ETL/ELT

Data governance

Data modeling

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Security/compliance

GEOINT

REST APIs

Cloud-native

Distributed systems

RAG

Ferramentas

Airflow

Dagster

Argo Workflows

Kafka

Redpanda

NATS

GitOps

Kubernetes

Helm

Descrição da vaga

Role Description

We are seeking a Senior Data Engineer to work alongside a government team and its technology partners in building an emerging AI-powered engineering environment.

This role focuses on making enterprise data usable, discoverable, governed, and accessible to AI models, agents, and mission applications. You’ll work across data ingestion, transformation, storage, metadata, APIs, search, vector and graph technologies, and the connections between data infrastructure and AI workloads.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on data engineer with experience across the full data lifecycle who understands how data availability and integration challenges can impact AI delivery. You should be comfortable navigating evolving architectures, quickly learning unfamiliar systems, collaborating directly with commercial technology partners, and solving complex challenges involving data quality, lineage, access, performance, and security.

This is not a traditional analytics or business intelligence role. The focus is on building reliable data foundations and repeatable solutions that enable AI and agentic capabilities to access trusted data and move from prototype to production in secure and classified environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain reliable data pipelines that ingest, transform, validate, and deliver data for AI models, agents, and mission applications.
• Integrate structured and unstructured data sources into enterprise data services, including relational, document, vector, and graph-oriented technologies.
• Work closely with AI/agent engineers to make data discoverable and usable for RAG, semantic search, model context, and tool-enabled agent workflows.
• Develop repeatable data ingestion and transformation patterns using Python, SQL, APIs, event-driven architectures, and workflow/orchestration technologies.
• Establish data quality, validation, provenance, lineage, and metadata practices so downstream users and AI systems can trust the information they consume.
• Design data access patterns that enforce appropriate identity, authorization, classification, and security boundaries while minimizing unnecessary friction for developers and mission users.
• Collaborate with platform engineers to operationalize data services within Kubernetes/OpenShift environments and integrate them into CI/CD and GitOps workflows.
• Help integrate enterprise data capabilities such as relational stores, JSON/document data, vector search, graph data, advanced analytics, and RAG services into the broader platform architecture.
• Troubleshoot end-to-end data issues spanning source systems, pipelines, storage, APIs, identity, networking, platform services, and AI applications.
• Work directly with government engineers and commercial technology partners to resolve data dependencies and remove blockers to mission delivery.
• Develop documentation, data contracts, schemas, architecture decision records, runbooks, and operational standards that make successful patterns repeatable across environments.
• Identify recurring data engineering challenges that can be standardized, automated, or productized rather than repeatedly solved through manual engineering.
• Operate effectively in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment where data sources, architectures, security requirements, and mission priorities will continue to evolve.

Local to the National Capital Region and able to support onsite work at a government facility in Springfield, VA as mission needs increase.

Minimum Experience and Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI clearance.
• 7+ years of experience in data engineering, data platform engineering, or a closely related field.
• Strong proficiency with SQL and Python for data processing, automation, and integration.
• Hands-on experience building and operating production data pipelines and ETL/ELT workflows.
• Experience with relational databases and modern data storage patterns for structured and unstructured data.
• Experience integrating data through REST APIs, message/event systems, or other distributed integration patterns.
• Working knowledge of data modeling, schema design, data quality, lineage, metadata, and data governance concepts.
• Experience operating in cloud-native or containerized environments and collaborating with Kubernetes/platform engineering teams.
• Ability to troubleshoot data issues across infrastructure, applications, APIs, storage, networking, and access controls.
• Ability to work independently, rapidly learn new technologies, and translate ambiguous mission needs into working data solutions.
• GEOINT experience is preferred, not required.

Preferred Experience and Qualifications

• Experience supporting AI/ML workloads, including RAG, embeddings, vector search, model context, or agentic applications.
• Experience with vector databases, graph databases, document databases, knowledge graphs, or semantic search technologies.
• Experience with Oracle or comparable enterprise data platforms supporting relational, JSON/document, vector, graph, and analytics workloads.
• Experience designing data products or platforms for high-scale, low-latency, or mission-critical workloads.
• Experience with data orchestration and workflow tools such as Airflow, Dagster, Argo Workflows, or comparable technologies.
• Experience with streaming/event platforms such as Kafka, Redpanda, NATS, or similar technologies.
• Experience deploying data services using Kubernetes, Helm, GitOps, Infrastructure as Code, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience supporting data and AI systems in Secret or TS/SCI environments and across multiple security domains.
• Experience with disconnected or air-gapped environments and the challenges of moving data, metadata, and software across security boundaries.
• Familiarity with NIST 800-53, RMF/ATO processes, zero-trust architectures, and data security/compliance practices.
• Experience with enterprise search, RAG pipelines, data catalogs, data contracts, or knowledge-graph architectures.
• Familiarity with UDS, Zarf, Pepr, Iron Bank, or similar secure software delivery technologies.
• Experience working on multidisciplinary teams consisting of government engineers, FDEs, OEM professional services teams, and multiple technology vendors.
• Demonstrated ability to take a fragmented or difficult data environment and turn it into a reliable, reusable foundation for mission applications and AI.

Mission Focus

Make trusted data available where AI needs it, while establishing the repeatable, secure data patterns required to move from experimentation to operational capability.