Senior Data Engineer

Steampunk is a change agent in federal contracting, bringing new thinking to clients across Homeland and Federal Civil. In this onsite role in McLean, VA, you will help design and deliver enterprise-grade data platforms, services, and pipelines in Databricks, with a focus on leadership, reliability, and performance.

This position supports Steampunk’s AI & Data Exploitation Practice and centers on data engineering migrations, workflow and ETL assessment, and responsive technical collaboration with project teams and client stakeholders.

What you will do

• Lead and architect data migrations using Databricks, emphasizing performance, reliability, and scalability.
• Assess ETL jobs and understand workflows, data marts, BI tools, and reports.
• Respond to technical inquiries related to customization, integration, enterprise architecture, and the feature and functionality of data products.
• Support an Agile software development lifecycle.
• Contribute to the growth of Steampunk’s AI & Data Exploitation Practice.

What you bring

• Current ICE US Public Trust Clearance (Full Background Investigation).
• Ability to hold a position of public trust with the US government.
• 5 to 7 years industry experience coding commercial software, with a passion for solving complex problems.
• 5 to 7 years direct experience in Data Engineering with tools including:
  • Databricks, Apache Spark, Delta Lake, and related big data tools
  • Relational SQL (preferably T-SQL; alternatively pgSQL or MySQL)
  • Data pipeline and workflow management tools such as Databricks Workflows, Airflow, or Step Functions
  • AWS and Azure cloud services (for example, Databricks on AWS, S3, EC2, RDS)
  • Object-oriented or scripting languages such as PySpark/Python, Java, C++, or Scala
  • Experience with Data Lakehouse architecture, including Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg
• Advanced working knowledge of SQL, including query authoring and optimization, plus working familiarity with a variety of relational databases.
• Experience manipulating, processing, and extracting value from large, disconnected datasets.
• Ability to inspect existing data pipelines, determine purpose and functionality, and re-implement them efficiently in Databricks.
• Experience manipulating structured and unstructured data.
• Experience architecting data systems (transactional and warehouses).
• Experience with SDLC, CI/CD, and operating in dev/test/prod environments.
• Experience with data cataloging tools such as Informatica EDC, Unity Catalog, Collibra, Alation, Purview, or DataZone is a plus.
• Commitment to data governance.
• Experience supporting project teams of developers and data scientists building web-based interfaces, dashboards, reports, and analytics or machine learning models.
• Experience working in an Agile environment.

Salary and location

• Location: McLean, VA (onsite)
• Salary: USD 140,000 - 180,000 per year
• Minimum experience: 5 years

Identity verification

• During the application process, you are expected to be on camera during interviews and assessments.
• Steampunk may take your picture to verify your identity and prevent fraud.

Technologies

• Databricks, SQL, T-SQL, pgSQL, MySQL, PySpark, Python
• Apache Spark, Delta Lake, Databricks Workflows, Airflow, Step Functions
• AWS, Azure, S3, EC2, RDS
• Java, C++, Scala
• Data Lakehouse, Apache Iceberg
• Informatica EDC, Unity Catalog, Collibra, Alation, Purview, DataZone
• CI/CD, SDLC

Steampunk’s Human-Centered delivery methodology aims to change what federal clients expect from shared accountability when solving their toughest mission challenges.