Data Engineer

Location: Arlington, VA, US

Hybrid Role

Elder Research, Inc. (ERI) is a Data Science consulting firm specialized in providing analytic solutions to clients in Commercial and Government industries. The Government-Civilian (GovCiv) business unit is seeking to hire a Data Engineer with strong data engineering skills who will provide technical support across multiple project teams by designing and implementing the data pipelines and data architectures necessary to deliver analytics to our clients. We are trusted advisors to our clients, building lasting relationships and partnering as preferred analytics providers. We use a variety of programming languages and tools to create analytic solutions, often fitting within our clients’ environment and needs.

As a member of ERI, you will join a functional team of accomplished Data Scientists, Data Engineers, Data Analysts, and Software Engineers that deliver custom analytic solutions. Some of your responsibilities will include implementing data and software engineering best practices, wrangling and fusing large and disparate data sets, developing end-to-end data pipelines, evaluating data quality and embedding quality frameworks into data pipelines, assisting in the deployment of models and algorithms, creating, automating, and version controlling data pipelines in their entirety, and assisting with delivering and communicating model results through user-focused data visualizations.

We are looking to hire a Data Engineer who can support robust and repeatable data manipulation, large-scale infrastructure for data ingestion, and data visualization for custom client applications. [RH1] A Data Engineer works collaboratively with Data Scientists, Data Analysts, and other Software/Data Engineers to create and deploy dynamic data applications that help our customers make meaningful business decisions. Candidates should have the ability and the willingness to tailor applications to a clients’ business goals using an iterative methodology. Candidates should also be able to consider both long-term stability and scalability while taking a user-focused approach to development and deployment.

Desired Skills

Candidates should have a mix of the following experiences:

• Advised on data management strategies and best practices.
• Designed and implemented data architectures.
• Developed and implemented data pipelines using a variety of languages and platforms [RH2] that includes data transformations such as aggregations, joins, and data cleansing and standardization.
• Ingested data into SQL or NoSQL databases.
• Interacted with SQL or NoSQL databases via Python, Java, or similar.
• Provided access to transformed data for downstream applications or visualizations via REST APIs or similar.
• Worked with visualization software such as Power BI, Tableau, or similar.
• Skilled in applying Git (or other distributed version control) for collaboration, record-keeping, and deployment scenarios.
• Skilled in using cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) for building, deploying, evolving, and maintaining data pipelines.
• Skilled in applying continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) techniques for surfacing situations where new work breaks existing functionality.
• Had exposure to modeling and/or data analysis.
• Had some experience configuring a technical service such as a database, version control system, or operating system.
• Collaborated with others to accomplish a technical task using the Agile framework.
• Presented technical work to a non-technical audience via writing or presentation.

Desired Education and Experience

• Education:
  1. Master’s in a technical field and 1-2 years’ experience OR
  2. Bachelor’s and 2-3 years’ experience
• Certifications:
  1. AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelors/Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field requiring software development.
• 2 years’ of professional experience with Python, Java, SQL, or similar.
• Worked as a consultant/contractor for the federal government.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to parse project requirements, including asking questions to ensure full and correct understanding.
• Willingness and ability to learn new concepts and tools quickly.
• Willingness and ability to provide technical support across multiple projects.

What You Would Do

• Work on small teams in a highly collaborative environment.
• Participate in both existing and new projects.
• Contribute to consulting projects to solve interesting problems for multiple clients in various industries.
• Communicate details of the technical architecture to fellow team members and clients in both technical and non-technical terms.
• Work with Data Scientists to design and/or implement the technical architecture necessary to support analytics.
• Work with Software/Data Engineers to improve the robustness and scalability of software products.
• Participate in every stage of the engineering lifecycle, from ideation and requirements gathering through implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
• Work on documentation of the technical architecture for internal and client use.
• Design, create, and provision data stores.
• Build trusted and lasting relationships with clients.
• Provide value to our clients through analytics, software tools, and leadership.
• Manage and monitor pipelines to extract, transform, and load data (ETL).

About Elder Research, Inc.

Headquartered in Charlottesville, VA with offices in Arlington, VA, Baltimore, MD, and Raleigh, NC, Elder Research, Inc. (ERI) is a fast-growing solutions and consulting firm specializing in predictive analytics. At ERI, you’ll be part of a fun, friendly community. In keeping with our entrepreneurial spirit, we want candidates that are self-motivated with an innate curiosity and strong team work ethic. We work hard to provide the best value to our clients and allow each person to contribute their ideas and put their skills to use immediately.

ERI believes in continuous learning; each week the entire company attends a “Tech Talk” and an office lunch. Individuals often share what they have learned at informal bag lunch talks or afternoon chats. ERI provides a supportive work environment with established parental, bereavement, and PTO policies. By prioritizing a healthy work-life balance - with reasonable hours, solid pay, low travel, and flexible time off - ERI enables and encourages its employees to serve others. 

ERI provides analytic solutions to hundreds of companies across numerous industries. Our team enjoys great variety in the type of work we do and exposure to a wide range of techniques and tools. If you are passionate about integrating data, technology, and analytics in a team-based environment to solve problems, then ERI may be a good fit for you.