Senior Data lead / Engineer - (Need Investment banking or financial services experience) - W2 Preferred

Senior Data lead / engineer

Chicago, IL (3-day/week in Chicago office)

Duration: 9 contract

Job Description:

·        We are looking for a Senior Data lead / engineer with strong experience in Snowflake, Azure, Java, and Microservices to join our growing engineering team.

·        The ideal candidate will have an investment banking background and the ability to assess existing data flows, architect and design next-generation data systems, and develop robust, scalable, and secure solutions following best engineering practices. Hybrid model with 3-day/week in Chicago office.

Key Responsibilities

·        Analyze and assess current data pipelines and architecture across multiple systems.

·        Design and implement a modern, scalable data architecture using Snowflake and Azure cloud services.

·        Build, test, and deploy data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration pipelines using microservices-based architectures.

·        Collaborate with data scientists, analysts, and application developers to enable seamless data access and insight generation.

·        Ensure data quality, lineage, and security across all environments.

·        Implement and advocate for engineering best practices — CI/CD, code reviews, unit testing, and documentation.

·        Optimize performance and cost for data storage and computation.

·        Support ongoing production systems and troubleshoot complex data issues.

Required Skills & Experience

·        12 years of experience in data engineering, with at least 2 years in investment banking or financial services.

·        Strong hands-on experience in Snowflake (SQL, Snowpipe, Streams, Tasks) and Azure Data Services (ADF, Data Lake, Synapse).

·        Proficient in Java with a solid understanding of microservices architecture and REST APIs.

·        Experience with data modeling, ETL frameworks, and data orchestration tools.

·        Understanding of data governance, compliance, and security standards in banking environments.

·        Familiarity with DevOps tools (Git, Jenkins, Terraform, etc.) and Agile methodologies.

·        Excellent problem-solving and communication skills, with the ability to work cross-functionally.

Preferred Qualifications

·        Exposure to real-time data streaming (Kafka, Spark Streaming).

·        Knowledge of financial products, trade data, and regulatory reporting.

·        Experience in performance tuning and cost optimization in cloud data environments.