Senior Data Engineer

Systems Planning and Analysis is seeking a Senior Data Engineer / Integration Specialist to support HQ USSTRATCOM at Offutt AFB, NE (onsite). In this role, you will design and optimize secure, scalable enterprise data-ingestion, transformation, and integration pipelines that help advance C3/NC3 modernization and strategic deterrence missions. You will also lead integration of structured and unstructured data into authoritative datasets with IL5/IL6 governance and compliance requirements, while providing technical mentorship and support for system-to-system integration.

What you’ll do

• Serve as the senior technical analyst for data engineering, data integration, and enterprise-scale solutions supporting C3 and NC3 modernization and strategic deterrence missions.
• Lead the design, development, and optimization of secure, scalable data-ingestion, transformation, and integration pipelines for testing, experimentation, and rapid prototyping of new C3 and NC3 capabilities.
• Architect real-time and batch data-flow systems to enable data exchange across legacy DoW NC2 systems, sensors, platforms, and modern cloud environments.
• Integrate structured and unstructured sources into authoritative datasets, ensuring data quality, lineage, governance, and compliance with Impact Level 5 (IL5) and Impact Level 6 (IL6) requirements.
• Develop and maintain APIs, messaging middleware, schemas, data models, and interface control documents to support system-to-system integration.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers, analysts, and integration specialists to promote consistent engineering practices.
• Collaborate with systems engineers, software developers, modelers, and mission stakeholders to translate operational needs into data-driven technical requirements and architectures.
• Support technology evaluations, experiments, demonstrations, and capability-prototype assessments involving data-centric solutions and distributed architectures.
• Create technical documentation, data-flow diagrams, engineering artifacts, and senior-leader briefings to communicate findings and recommendations.

What you’ll bring

• Must be a U.S. citizen with an active Top Secret (TS) clearance and SCI eligibility, plus eligibility on day one for Nuclear Command and Control – Extremely Sensitive Information (NC2-ESI), NATO, and Special Access Required (SAR) programs, and maintain all required clearances and eligibilities throughout employment.
• Ability to work full-time onsite, 5 days a week, at Offutt Air Force Base (AFB).
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field.
• 6–10 years of progressive experience in data engineering, data integration, or software development, including 3+ years supporting DoW, DoD, or Intelligence Community missions.
• Demonstrated expertise designing and implementing complex ETL/ELT pipelines and integration workflows.
• Strong proficiency in Python, Java, or comparable languages used in enterprise data engineering.
• Hands-on experience with streaming and distributed frameworks such as Apache Kafka, NiFi, Spark, or similar.
• Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server) and NoSQL/graph databases.
• Proven experience developing and consuming RESTful APIs and gRPC within distributed architectures.
• Experience with AWS, Azure, GCP, hybrid environments, DevSecOps pipelines, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible), and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).

Technologies you’ll work with

• Python, Java
• ETL, ELT
• Apache Kafka, NiFi, Spark
• PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server
• RESTful APIs, gRPC
• AWS, Azure, GCP
• DevSecOps, CI/CD
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), Ansible
• Docker, Kubernetes

Desired qualifications

• Experience supporting USSTRATCOM, NC3, or strategic C3 modernization efforts.
• Knowledge of data-centric modernization, Digital Mission Engineering, and Authoritative Sources of Truth frameworks.
• Experience with graph databases such as Neo4j or JanusGraph for modeling complex interdependencies.
• Familiarity with data governance, data quality frameworks, and lineage tools.
• Experience working within IL5/IL6 classified environments.