Senior Data Engineer - Federal On-Prem Platform (TS Eligible)

Strategic Innovation Group; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) with match

PTO

Life insurance

Short-term disability

Long-term disability

HSA

Job summary

Strategic Innovation Group seeks a Senior Data Engineer to own the data core of a federal analytics platform. You will design a governed PostgreSQL data layer, architect a scalable Python ingestion pipeline, and build reusable connectors for multiple agencies within an on-premises FedRAMP Moderate environment.

You will lead data quality, metadata, lineage, and documentation efforts, coordinate with governance, security, and stakeholders, and drive CI/CD in a Kubernetes-based deployment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field; equivalent experience may be considered.
• 8+ years of professional data engineering experience, including 3+ years as technical lead or senior engineer on a production data platform (6+ years with a Master's degree).
• Expert-level SQL and PostgreSQL data modeling, including normalized and analytic schemas, partitioning, indexing, and performance tuning.
• Strong Python for pipeline development and hands-on experience with an orchestration framework such as Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect.
• Demonstrated experience designing reusable, configuration-driven ingestion from heterogeneous sources with schema validation and data-quality checks.
• Experience deploying pipelines in containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes) with Git-based version control and CI/CD.
• Experience handling PII and sensitive financial or program data under NIST SP 800-53 or equivalent controls.
• Experience working in Agile software development environments and collaborating with technical and non-technical stakeholders in a federal contracting environment.
• Strong written communication skills for data-model documentation, runbooks, and knowledge transfer.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement the centralized data layer in PostgreSQL to a governed schema and shared data vocabulary defined with the data governance lead.
• Architect a scalable ingestion pipeline in Python (Airflow, Dagster, Prefect, or comparable orchestration) that collects, normalizes, validates, and persists structured and unstructured data from agency financial-management, program-management, and payment systems and from Government-wide data sources.
• Build configuration-driven connectors (REST APIs, flat files, database replication, SFTP) that are reusable across agencies without source-code changes, and deploy them through the program CI/CD pipeline (GitLab, Jenkins or Azure DevOps) with automated build, test, and security scanning to the client's Rancher-managed Kubernetes platform.
• Implement PII anonymization, data-handling, and access controls at ingestion in coordination with the security lead, aligned to NIST SP 800-53 Moderate controls.
• Implement defined analytic rules and threshold-based indicators as deterministic, inspectable SQL that runs on a scheduled refresh, and document the data and criteria behind each rule.
• Lead the error-detection methodology for data-quality issues: identify, categorize, track, resolve, and report defects and anomalies throughout the lifecycle.
• Capture metadata and data lineage, and expose data-currency indicators (source, last refreshed, next refresh) to the user interface.
• Set coding, code-review, testing, and documentation standards for the data team; review the Data Engineer's work; and collaborate with application developers on API access to the data core.
• Troubleshoot and resolve pipeline failures, data discrepancies, and query performance bottlenecks.
• Produce technical documentation, data dictionaries, and runbooks, and deliver knowledge transfer so client staff can operate, maintain, and extend pipelines with minimal contractor reliance.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies, sprint planning, code reviews, demonstrations, and continuous improvement activities.

Skills

SQL & PostgreSQL

Python

Airflow/Dagster/Prefect

Data modeling

Data ingestion

Docker/Kubernetes

PII handling

Agile

Stakeholder comms

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/IS/Engineering

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Strategic Innovation Group seeks a Senior Data Engineer to own the data core of a federal analytics platform. You will design a governed PostgreSQL data layer, architect a scalable Python ingestion pipeline, and build reusable connectors for multiple agencies within an on-premises FedRAMP Moderate environment.

You will lead data quality, metadata, lineage, and documentation efforts, coordinate with governance, security, and stakeholders, and drive CI/CD in a Kubernetes-based deployment.