Lead Data Engineer

Job Title: Data Engineering Lead / Solution Architect

Location: Jefferson City, MO
Type: Contract-to-Hire (9 12 months)
Banking Domain

Summary:

Seeking a Data Engineering Lead/Solution Architect with strong banking experience and hands-on expertise in Microsoft data services (Azure Fabric, ADF, Synapse), ETL/ELT, and cloud modernization. The ideal candidate will lead and mentor data engineering teams, drive data modernization initiatives, and design scalable cloud data solutions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead modernization of legacy ETL/ELT and data systems to cloud (Azure/AWS).

• Design and maintain cloud-based data pipelines and architectures.

• Mentor data engineers; provide technical leadership and solution guidance.

• Work closely with stakeholders to translate business needs into scalable data solutions.

• Implement security, classification, and regulatory data standards (PII, sensitive data).

• Perform data profiling, integration, and optimization across structured/unstructured data.

• Build/automate ETL/ELT using Databricks, ADF, SSIS, Spark, Python/Scala.

• Conduct testing, documentation, and performance monitoring of data pipelines.

Required Skills:

• 3 years in data warehouse/analytics solution design (on-prem & cloud).

• Strong experience with ADF, Synapse, SSIS, ETL/ELT, data quality, MDM.

• Cloud experience with Azure data services (Fabric Lakehouse, ADF, Synapse).

• 2 years in Python/Scala/Java for distributed processing (Spark).

• Knowledge of CI/CD (Azure DevOps, Git, Jenkins).

• Strong communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with Snowflake, Databricks, AWS.

• Knowledge of microservices, containerization, Kafka/event streaming.

• Microsoft Purview, Power BI/Tableau.

• Banking/financial sector experience.

• Familiarity with ML concepts.