We are seeking a
Senior Data Architect to lead the design and evolution of enterprise-level data ecosystems. You will be responsible for architecting scalable, secure, and high-performance data infrastructures that support mission-critical aviation sustainment. This is a "player-coach" role that requires high-level strategic planning alongside hands-on engineering execution.
Benefits- Health insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Life Insurance
- 401(k) Retirement Plan with matching
- Paid Time Off
- Paid Federal Holidays
Key ResponsibilitiesArchitecture & Design: Design conceptual, logical, and physical data models for complex federal environments. Lead the transition from legacy on-premises systems to modern, cloud-native (AWS/GCP) data platforms.
Pipeline Development: Architect and oversee the build of automated ETL/ELT pipelines using Python, SQL, and PySpark to ingest and transform unstructured and structured data.
Cloud Data Warehousing: Implement and optimize enterprise data warehouses using tools like
AWS Redshift,
Google BigQuery,
AWS Glue, and
Databricks.
Governance & Compliance: Establish data governance frameworks, metadata management, and data lineage in alignment with federal standards (HIPAA, FHIR, NIST).
Performance Optimization: Conduct index/partition design, query tuning, and sharding strategies to ensure high availability and scalability for real-time analytics.
AI/ML Support: Design data architectures that facilitate AI/ML initiatives, including model training pipelines and real-time inference in production environments.
Leadership: Mentor a team of data engineers, enforce software engineering best practices (CI/CD, unit testing, documentation), and serve as a technical bridge between stakeholders and delivery teams.
Required Qualifications- Must be a U.S. Citizen.
- Masters's Degree or Above in Systems Engineering, Computer Science or related field.
- An active security clearance or the ability to obtain one is required.
- Minimum 6+ years of experience to include:
- Experience in data management, utilizing advanced analytics tools and platforms and Python.
- Experience with Data Warehousing consulting/engineering or related technologies (Redshift, Databricks, BigQuery, OADW, Apache Hive, Apache Lucene).
- Experience in scripting, tooling, and automating large-scale computing environments.
- Extensive experience with major tools such as Python, Pandas, PySpark, NumPy, SciPy, SQL, and Git; Minor experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Scikit-learn.
- Compliance: Deep understanding of data security and federal compliance requirements.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE / QUALIFICATIONS- Data Architecture and Design
- Skills:
- Data modeling (conceptual, logical, and physical)
- Database schema design
- Understanding of different database paradigms (relational, NoSQL, graph databases, etc.)
- ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes and tools
- Experience with modern data warehousing solutions (e.g., Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery)
- Understanding of dimensional modeling (star/snowflake schemas) and data vault techniques.
- Experience designing for both OLTP and OLAP workloads.
- Familiarity with metadata-driven design and schema evolution in data systems.
- Experience defining data SLAs and lifecycle management policies.
- Project Experience: Designing and implementing scalable data architectures that support business intelligence, analytics, and machine learning workflows.
- Data Pipeline Development
- Skills:
- Proficiency in tools like Apache Kafka, Airflow, Spark, Flink, or NiFi
- Experience with cloud-based data services (AWS Glue, Google Cloud Dataflow, Azure Data Factory)
- Real-time and batch data processing
- Automation and monitoring of data pipelines
- Strong understanding of incremental processing, idempotency, and backfill strategies.
- Knowledge of workflow dependency management, retries, and alerting.
- Experience writing modular, testable, and reusable Python-based ETL code.
- Project Experience: Leading the development of highly available, fault-tolerant, and scalable data pipelines, integrating multiple data sources, and ensuring data quality.
- Cloud Platforms and Services
- Skills:
- Expertise in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure)
- Understanding of cloud-based storage (S3, Blob Storage), databases (RDS, DynamoDB), and compute resources
- Implementing cloud-native data solutions (Data Lake, Data Warehouse, Data Mesh)
- Experience with cost monitoring and optimization for data workloads.
- Familiarity with hybrid and multi-cloud architectures.
- Understanding of serverless data patterns (e.g., Lambda + S3 + Athena, Cloud Functions + BigQuery).
- Project Experience: Migrating legacy data infrastructure to the cloud or developing new data platforms using cloud services, with a focus on cost efficiency and scalability.
- Big Data Technologies
- Skills:
- Experience with big data ecosystems (Hadoop, HDFS, Hive, Spark)
- Distributed computing, parallel processing, and handling petabyte-scale data
- Tools for querying large datasets (Presto, Athena)
- Understanding of lakehouse frameworks (Delta Lake, Iceberg, Hudi).
- Familiarity with data compaction, schema evolution, and ACID guarantees in distributed storage
- Project Experience: Building and managing big data platforms to enable large-scale analytics, often incorporating structured and unstructured data.
- Database Administration and Optimization
- Skills:
- Expertise in database technologies (SQL, NoSQL, GraphDBs)
- Query optimization, indexing, and partitioning strategies
- Backup, replication, and disaster recovery planning
- Understanding of query execution plans, cost-based optimization, and caching strategies.
- Experience performing index and partition design based on query patterns.
- Familiarity with data versioning and temporal tables.
- Experience profiling and optimizing application code interacting with databases.
- Project Experience: Performance tuning for complex queries, implementing database replication and sharding strategies to support high availability and scalability.
- Data Governance and Security
- Skills:
- Data privacy, encryption, and compliance with regulations (GDPR, CCPA)
- Implementing data governance frameworks (data lineage, cataloging, metadata management)
- Role-based access control and user management for sensitive data
- Experience with automated policy enforcement and data lineage visualization tools (e.g., DataHub, Collibra, Alation).
- Knowledge of data quality frameworks integrated into CI/CD pipelines.
- Familiarity with data contract testing between producer and consumer teams.
- Project Experience: Developing and implementing data governance policies and security controls across the organization's data assets, ensuring compliance with industry standards.
- Programming and Scripting Languages
- Skills:
- Proficiency in Python and SQL
- Experience with version control (Git) and CI/CD for data engineering (Gitlab, Jenkins, CircleCI)
- API design and integration (Postman)
- Strong understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP) principles and design patterns in Python.
- Familiarity with software engineering best practices (modularity, testing, documentation, linting).
- Understanding of algorithmic complexity (Big O notation) and ability to optimize code for scale.
- Experience with parallel and distributed computation frameworks (Spark, Dask, Ray).
- Ability to profile and debug performance bottlenecks in data workflows.
- Use of type hinting, logging frameworks, and automated testing frameworks (pytest, unittest)
- AI/ML Pipeline Support and Analytics
- Skills:
- Experience in supporting data scientists with feature engineering, data wrangling, and model deployment
- Knowledge of ML orchestration tools (MLflow, Kubeflow)
- Hands-on experience with analytics tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI)
- Familiarity with feature store design and model feature lineage tracking.
- Understanding of data versioning and reproducibility for ML workflows.
- Experience supporting real-time model inference pipelines.
- Project Experience: Designing architectures that support AI/ML initiatives, enabling scalable data pipelines for training models, and supporting experimentation in the production environment.
- Leadership and Mentorship
- Skills:
- Leading data engineering teams, cross-functional collaboration with data scientists, analysts, and business units
- Project management (Agile, Scrum, Kanban) and stakeholder communication
- Experience with mentorship and growing junior data engineers
- Experience establishing data architecture standards and best practices.
- Ability to review and approve technical designs for consistency and scalability.
- Proven success in mentoring engineers in code quality, modeling, and system design.
- Project Experience: Leading the technical direction for large-scale data initiatives, such as enterprise data lake implementations or the creation of a unified data platform.
$155,000 - $180,000 a year
