Senior Data Engineer: PostgreSQL & ML Data Architect

Aimlroles; State College (Centre County); On-site; USD 122,000 - 266,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

75% tuition discount

Job summary

Penn State Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) in State College, PA or Reston, VA seeks a Senior Data Engineer to architect scalable database solutions for data science and ML initiatives. Lead PostgreSQL design, optimize queries, and guide choices among MongoDB, Neo4j, Redis, and Cassandra.

Minimum 5+ years in data engineering with strong SQL, Python, and cloud database experience. DoD SkillBridge partner with campus security and competitive benefits.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in data engineering or related roles.
• Expert-level PostgreSQL proficiency (schema design, indexing, partitioning, replication).
• Strong data modeling and query optimization.
• Experience with non-relational databases (MongoDB, Cassandra, Neo4j, Redis, or DynamoDB).
• Familiarity with machine learning workflows and data consumption for training/evaluation/deployment.
• Experience with cloud database services (AWS RDS/Aurora, GCP Cloud SQL, Azure Database).
• Proficiency in SQL and Python.
• Excellent communication and collaboration with data scientists, ML engineers, and software developers.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain scalable, high-performance database solutions for data science workflows and ML experimentation.
• Partner with data scientists to optimize data access patterns and storage strategies.
• Serve as PostgreSQL SME on schema design, indexing, partitioning, and query optimization.
• Evaluate and integrate MongoDB, Neo4j, Redis, Cassandra where advantageous.
• Lead data pipeline optimization for structured and unstructured data.
• Ensure data integrity, security, and governance across storage systems.
• Implement monitoring, automation, and performance-tuning tools.
• Advise on data lifecycle management balancing accessibility and compliance.

Skills

PostgreSQL

Data modeling

SQL

Python

Cloud databases

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science/Data Engineering/related field

Tools

MongoDB

Cassandra

Neo4j

Redis

DynamoDB

Airflow

dbt

Job description

Penn State Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) in State College, PA or Reston, VA seeks a Senior Data Engineer to architect scalable database solutions for data science and ML initiatives. Lead PostgreSQL design, optimize queries, and guide choices among MongoDB, Neo4j, Redis, and Cassandra.

Minimum 5+ years in data engineering with strong SQL, Python, and cloud database experience. DoD SkillBridge partner with campus security and competitive benefits.