Senior Entity Resolution Engineer

defcon; United States; Remote; USD 160,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Dental coverage

Vision coverage

Unlimited paid time off

Flexible scheduling

Parental leave (14 weeks)

Job summary

defcon is seeking a senior data linkage engineer to build production-grade entity-resolution systems for a government-focused data platform. You will design and implement the end-to-end matching lifecycle, including blocking, candidate generation, scoring, clustering, and thresholding, with provenance and explainable decisions.

The role is fully remote in the United States with occasional travel to headquarters or partner sites.

Qualifications

• At least five years shipping record-matching or entity-resolution systems.
• Strong Python and SQL skills working on large, messy real-world datasets.
• Ability to explain matching tradeoffs to nontechnical stakeholders.
• U.S. citizenship and an active U.S. Secret clearance required at start.
• Experience with probabilistic matching and explainable provenance.

Responsibilities

• Implement the matching lifecycle: blocking, candidate generation, pairwise scoring, clustering, and threshold recommendations.
• Use a shared matching engine for record linkage, deduplication, and known-entity checks.
• Track origins of graph nodes, edges, and assertions for auditability.
• Evaluate candidate retrieval and final matching against a fixed reference dataset with evidence.
• Make false-merge and false-split tradeoffs explicit and explainable to nontechnical stakeholders.
• Document the matching logic as a practical engineering reference.

Skills

Python

SQL

Explain tradeoffs

Large datasets

Provenance & auditability

Tools

PostgreSQL

pgvector

record linkage tools (Splink/Dedupe)

AQL/SQL tooling

Job description

Role overview

Build the production capability that identifies when records from different sources refer to the same real-world entity. You’ll implement an internally designed matching approach for a data platform supporting government missions, with an emphasis on explainable decisions, reliable provenance, and a pipeline other engineers can extend.

Responsibilities

• Implement the matching lifecycle, including blocking, candidate generation, pairwise scoring, clustering, and threshold recommendations.
• Use a shared matching engine for record linkage, deduplication, and known-entity checks.
• Track the origins of graph nodes, edges, and assertions so matching decisions can be audited.
• Evaluate candidate retrieval and final matching separately against a fixed reference dataset, providing evidence for review.
• Make false-merge and false-split tradeoffs explicit and explainable to nontechnical stakeholders.
• Document the matching logic as a practical implementation reference for the engineering team.

Requirements

• At least five years of experience, including shipping record-matching or entity-resolution systems to production.
• Strong Python and SQL skills, with experience working on large, messy real-world datasets.
• Ability to explain matching tradeoffs and defend a decision to a stakeholder who does not know the implementation details.
• U.S. citizenship and an active U.S. Secret clearance required at the start of employment.

Nice to have

• Experience with probabilistic matching of inconsistent identity data, including names, dates, addresses, and identifiers.
• Familiarity with record-linkage methods or tools such as Fellegi-Sunter models, Splink, Dedupe, or Zingg.
• Background in record linkage, master data management, identity management, or production graph modeling and algorithms.
• Experience with PostgreSQL and pgvector or comparable technology; an active Top Secret clearance is also preferred.

Benefits and work setup

The role is fully remote, with occasional travel to headquarters, customer sites, or partner facilities. The listed salary range is $160,000–$195,000, with bonus and equity. Benefits include employer-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and families, manager-approved unlimited paid time off, flexible scheduling, and 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave.