Senior Principal Data Engineer

Jobtailor; Fort Bragg (NC); On-site; USD 130,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Jobtailor seeks a senior data engineer to design and deliver advanced data solutions for defense readiness. You will lead engineers, mentor teammates, and shape cloud data architectures to support mission-critical operations.

Responsibilities include collaborating with migration teams, creating live-data dashboards, and aligning with government PMs on sprint cadence. Expect quarterly travel and deep cross-functional collaboration to ensure robust data pipelines across platforms.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of related experience.
• Experience with SQL databases and Python scripting.
• Hands-on with big data tools such as Presto/Trino, Hive, Spark, Flink.
• Strong data lake/warehouse architecture, ETL/ELT pipelines.
• Workflow orchestration with Airflow or similar.
• Cloud experience (AWS/Azure) and containerized microservices on Kubernetes.
• U.S. Citizenship and cross-team communication.

Responsibilities

• Design and deliver advanced data solutions that enhance warfighter readiness and decision‑making.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to an engineering team.
• Leverage cloud‑based data architectures to support mission‑critical operations.
• Recommend tools based on research of current environment and resources.
• Work with migration teams to implement strategy and architecture design.
• Lead a team developing deliverables from live data to create dashboards.
• Coordinate with government PM to establish sprint cadence and update status dashboards.
• Quarterly travel.

Skills

Technical leadership

Mentorship

Communication

Analysis

Problem-solving

Tools

SQL

Python

Presto

Hive

Spark

Flink

ETL

ELT

Airflow

Kubernetes

Job description

• Design and deliver advanced data solutions that enhance warfighter readiness and decision‑making
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to an engineering team
• Leverage expertise in cloud‑based data architectures to support mission‑critical operations
• Recommend tools and capabilities based on research of current environment and knowledge of various resources
• Work with client’s migration teams to implement strategy and architecture design
• Function as Team Lead for a team developing technical deliverables utilizing live data to create visual dashboards
• Work with government PM to establish sprint cadence and update status dashboards
• Quarterly travel

Requirements

• 10+ years of related experience
• SQL Database experience
• S3/Block Storage integration
• Python scripting
• 3‑5 years of experience with non-proprietary big data technologies (Presto, Hive, Spark, Flink, etc) – Presto/Trino is preferred
• 3‑5 years of experience with demonstrated strength in data lake/warehouse technical architecture, infrastructure components, and ETL/ELT pipelines
• 3‑5 years of experience with workflow management engines (i.e. Airflow, AWS Step Functions, Prefect)
• Experience understanding requirements, analyzing data, discovering opportunities, addressing gaps and communicating them to multiple individuals and stakeholders
• 3‑5 years of experience in software development, infrastructure, or Cloud operations role
• Experience with multiple operating systems, including LINUX, UNIX, and Windows-based operating systems
• Experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure
• Experience with deploying containerized microservices in Kubernetes infrastructure
• Must be a U.S. Citizen

Hard Skills

• SQL
• Python
• Presto
• Hive
• Spark
• Flink
• ETL
• ELT
• Airflow
• Kubernetes

Soft Skills

• Technical leadership
• Mentorship
• Communication
• Analysis
• Problem‑solving