Senior Data Engineer — Architect Data Platforms for ML

The Pennsylvania State University; United States; On-site; USD 146,000 - 319,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

75% tuition discount

Job summary

The Pennsylvania State University is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to design and optimize scalable data systems for data science and ML initiatives within the ARL’s Information Science Division. You will partner with data scientists to shape storage strategies, focus on PostgreSQL excellence, and evaluate alternative databases for mixed workloads.

Responsibilities include leading data pipeline optimization, ensuring data integrity and governance, and implementing monitoring and automation

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in data engineering, database architecture, or related technical roles.
• Expert-level proficiency in PostgreSQL (schema design, indexing, partitioning, replication).
• Strong understanding of data modeling, normalization vs. denormalization, and query optimization.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain scalable, high-performance database solutions to support data science workflows and ML experimentation.
• Partner with data scientists to understand data access patterns and develop storage strategies that accelerate analysis and model training.
• Serve as the internal subject matter expert on PostgreSQL—including schema design, indexing, partitioning, and query optimization.
• Evaluate and integrate alternative database technologies where they provide clear advantages.
• Lead efforts to optimize data pipelines for both structured and unstructured data used in algorithm development.
• Ensure data integrity, security, and governance across storage systems.
• Implement monitoring, automation, and performance‑tuning tools for all database environments.
• Advise on data lifecycle management—balancing accessibility for R&D with efficiency and compliance requirements.

Skills

PostgreSQL expert

Database design

Query optimization

Data modeling

Cloud databases

Python scripting

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS / Data Engineering

Tools

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

Cassandra

Neo4j

Redis

DynamoDB

AWS RDS/Aurora

SQL

Job description

The Pennsylvania State University is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to design and optimize scalable data systems for data science and ML initiatives within the ARL’s Information Science Division. You will partner with data scientists to shape storage strategies, focus on PostgreSQL excellence, and evaluate alternative databases for mixed workloads.

Responsibilities include leading data pipeline optimization, ensuring data integrity and governance, and implementing monitoring and automation