Data Automation Engineer

Job Title: Data Automation Engineer
Location: Remote (potential travel to the Washington D.C. metro
area on special occasions)
Duration: 6-month Contract with possible full time conversion or extension
Pay range: $50 - 52/hr on W2

Overview
Job Description

• While this is a lead role, this is also a strong individual contributor. If a candidate was in a lead role, please be sure their resume spells out their individual contributions day in/day out.
• somebody A primary skill-set need is who worked hands-on in Azure Data Factory, Synapse, SQL Managed Instances building pipelines and has brought data from source systems and traditional on-prem/EDW.
• Heavy in Data Engineering skills along with someone who can improve overall report performance with ETL performance testing using tools like JMeter, Spark UI + Ganglia
• Use of Azure Cloud Native Performance Testing Tools

Looking for an opportunity to make an impact?

Client is seeking a customer experience focused Data Automation Engineer to work with a team of subject matter experts and developers to design and implement innovative data automation solutions for Azure cloud-based data lake, SQL, and NoSQL platform. As a data automation engineer, you will translate business requirements to data engineering and AI based solutions to support an enterprise scale Client Azure based data analytics and reporting platform. Our ideal candidate is mission focused and delivery oriented and applies critical thinking to create innovative functions and solve technical issues.

Who we are
Client is a Fortune 500® technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, civil, and health markets. Client Civil Group helps the government modernize operations with leading edge AI/ML driven data management and analytics solutions. We are a trusted partner to both government and highly-regulated commercial customers looking for transformative solutions in mission IT, security, software, engineering, and operations. We work with our customers including the FAA, DOE, DOJ, NASA, National Science Foundation, Transportation Security Administration, Custom and Border Protection, airports, and electric utilities to make the world safer, healthier, and more efficient.

In this role, you will:

• Utilize Client Azure services including Azure Data Factory, Synapse Pipelines, Apache Spark Notebooks, Python, SQL, stored procedures to develop high performing data pipelines.
• Continuously improve and optimize the automation toolset for reliability, scalability, and adaptability.
• Research and implement cutting-edge AI/ML and GenAI tools to rapidly develop intelligent applications, scripts, and ETL pipelines that automate data processes, and proactively eliminate workflow bottlenecks.
• Work closely with implementation specialists, engineering teams, and customer to understand data driven needs and build solutions that address real operational challenges.
• Work closely with client personnel and team members to understand data requirements and develop appropriate data solutions.
• Identify, create, prepare data required for advanced analytics, visualization, reporting, and AI/ML.
• Implement data migration, data integrity, data quality, metadata management, and data security functions to optimize data pipelines.
• Monitor and troubleshoot data related issues to maintain high availability and performance.
• Assist in ETL performance testing for data pipelines by executing test runs and validating data load performance against expected benchmarks.
• Support baseline performance analysis by comparing new pipeline performance with legacy system metrics (e.g., load time, throughput, latency).
• Help monitor pipeline execution metrics such as run time, data volume processed, and resource utilization to identify bottlenecks.
• Participate in performance test execution for Azure-based pipelines (ADF, Synapse, Databricks) in non-production environments.
• Assist in identifying performance issues and contribute to tuning efforts (e.g., query optimization, partitioning, indexing basics).
• Validate data consistency and completeness after performance test runs to ensure no data loss during high-volume processing.
• Collaborate with DevOps and infrastructure teams to understand how compute, memory, and scaling impact pipeline performance.
• Follow defined performance testing processes, checklists, and guidelines established by senior team members.
• Document test results, issues, and observations clearly for team review and tracking.
• Actively support Agile DevOps process, including Program Increment planning.
• Actively engage in continuous learning to increase relevant skills.
• Maintain strict versioning and configuration control to ensure integrity of data.

For this position, you should possess:

• BS degree in Computer Science or related field and 2+ years of experience in relevant field
• 2+ years of experience with more than one of the follow scripting languages: SQL, T-SQL, MDX/DAX, Python, and PySpark.
• Experience designing and building ETL/data engineering solutions, schedule and monitor utilizing various cloud services such as Azure Data Lake Services, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Factory, Integration Runtime.
• Experience working with Client database and business intelligence tools, including SQL Server, including stored procedures, SSIS, SSRS, SSAS (cubes), and Power BI.
• Experience with data automation using Azure/AWS CLI tools with Bash or PowerShell scripting.
• Familiarity with Azure DevOps Repos or GitHub and pipeline versioning/release management.
• Demonstrated experience in supporting production, testing, integration, and development environments.
• Open mindset, ability to quickly adapt new technologies to solve customer problems.
• Experience in Agile projects, working with a multi functional team.
• Must be detail oriented, and able to support multiple projects and tasks.
• Demonstrate continuous learning to increase relevant skills.
• US Citizenship and ability to successfully obtain a government-issued Public Trust clearance.

Not required, but additional education, certifications, and/or experience are a plus:

• Experience and/or certifications in Generative AI development, Generative AI for Data Analytics, and solution delivery.
• Client certification in Azure fundamentals, data engineer, Power BI, AI or AWS certified data engineer.
• Integration knowledge using enterprise/open source ETL toolsets, REST API, Docker.
• Experience or exposure to performance fine tuning (indexing, execution plans, views), data profiling and query analytics.
• Knowledge of security compliance standards with data encryption, cloud virtual networks, routing, firewalls, log analytics, monitors
• Basic knowledge of ARM or Bicep templates for automation, familiarity with RBAC access controls.
• Data lineage and impact analysis using tools like Purview, Synapse pipeline tracing, et