Staff Data Engineer, Foundry & Ontology

The Staff Data Engineer role focuses on building data architectures, ontologies, and integrations for U.S. Army operational decision support using Palantir Foundry. The position includes hands-on development of ontology objects and workflows, along with support for AI-enabled capabilities such as conversational AI and agent-enabled workflows.

Location and Employment

• Location: Fort Bragg, NC (onsite)
• Target Salary Range: USD 160,000 - 180,000 per year
• Clearance: Active Top Secret (TS)

Responsibilities

• Design and develop scalable data architectures, pipelines, and integrations using Palantir Foundry and related enterprise data platforms.
• Lead the development and refinement of ontologies representing operational entities, activities, and relationships across multiple data sources.
• Design and implement data models that connect information about personnel, units, equipment, installations, resources, and operational activities.
• Evaluate existing data models and ontology implementations to identify opportunities for reuse, extension, and improvement.
• Integrate structured and unstructured data from Army and Department of Defense systems of record.
• Define approaches for data quality, validation, lineage, traceability, and access controls to support reliable operational decision-making.
• Develop and maintain ontology objects, relationships, and associated workflows supporting operational applications and AI-enabled capabilities.
• Partner with software engineers to enable natural-language querying, conversational AI, and agent-enabled workflows using authoritative enterprise data.
• Provide technical guidance on data architecture, integration patterns, and engineering best practices.
• Work with operational stakeholders to translate mission requirements into technical solutions.
• Support integration and interoperability across Palantir Foundry, Army Vantage, Maven, and related enterprise environments.
• Contribute hands-on to development, testing, troubleshooting, and deployment of production data capabilities.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, data science, or a related technical discipline; or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience: Six or more years in data engineering, data architecture, software engineering, or related technical disciplines.
• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL.
• Experience designing and implementing production data pipelines, transformations, and integrations.
• Experience with complex data modeling, including relationships between entities across multiple data sources.
• Experience with Palantir Foundry, Army Vantage, Maven Smart System, or comparable enterprise data platforms.
• Experience integrating data from multiple enterprise systems, including APIs, databases, and other structured or unstructured sources.
• Understanding of data quality, lineage, governance, security, and access controls.
• Ability to lead technical design efforts while contributing directly to hands-on engineering and development.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including experience working with multidisciplinary technical teams.
• Active Top Secret (TS) security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with Palantir Foundry Ontology, including object types, link types, properties, and Actions.
• Experience designing ontology-driven applications or semantic data models.
• Experience with PySpark, distributed data processing, or large-scale enterprise data integration.
• Familiarity with Army operational data, including mobilization, personnel, force readiness, logistics, installations, or sustainment.
• Experience developing data foundations for AI-enabled applications, including natural-language querying, retrieval-augmented generation, and agent orchestration.
• Experience integrating data across systems with different security classifications, access requirements, or governance constraints.
• Experience supporting Department of Defense operational environments.
• Experience mentoring engineers and providing technical guidance on data architecture and engineering practices.

Technology Focus

• Platforms: Palantir Foundry, Army Vantage, Maven Smart System
• Languages and tools: Python, SQL, PySpark
• AI and interfaces: Natural-language querying, Conversational AI, Agent-enabled workflows
• Integration: APIs, databases

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, data science, or a related technical discipline.