[Remote] Data Engineer (Databricks)

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. ICF is a global advisory and technology services provider that combines technology and specialized expertise to help clients solve complex challenges, including public-sector modernization. The Senior Databricks Data Engineer will lead the design and development of secure, scalable data pipelines and ETL routines in a cloud-native Azure platform, supporting federal analytics, machine learning, and emergency management initiatives. The role also involves stakeholder collaboration, data quality assurance, platform optimization, and mentorship of junior resources.

Responsibilities

• Enable secure, scalable, and efficient data exchange between federal client and external data sharing partners using Databricks Delta Sharing
• Support the design and development of data pipelines and ETL routines in Azure Cloud environment for many source system types including RDBMS, API, and unstructured data using CDC, incremental, and batch loading techniques
• Conduct data profiling, transformation, and quality assurance on structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data
• Identify underlying issues and translate them into technical requirements
• Assist in building and optimizing data lakes, feature stores, and data warehouse structures to support analytics and machine learning
• Prepare, structure, and validate data for data science and MLOps workflows, ensuring it meets the quality and format requirements for modeling
• Help monitor and maintain the flow of data across BI dashboards, analytics environments, and machine learning pipelines
• Engage directly with clients and stakeholders to understand data needs and translate them into scalable solutions
• Collaborate with UX designers, business analysts, developers, and end users to define data and reporting requirements
• Work with external data partners to determine their data product needs and work within the Databricks platform to enable rapid prototyping and extensible use cases
• Meet with government employees at executive levels, platform stakeholders, and vendor partners
• Work within Agile teams to support iterative development, backlog grooming, and sprint-based delivery
• Provide mentorship to junior resources

Skills

• This position is fully remote with up to 10% travel to the DC Metropolitan area for client meetings
• This position requires that the job be performed in the United States
• Bachelor's degree
• 5+ years in data engineering, data security practices, data platforms, and analytics
• U.S. Citizenship required due to federal contract requirements
• Ability to obtain and maintain a federal public trust clearance or equivalent client-required background investigation
• Candidate must reside in the U.S., be authorized to work in the U.S., and all work must be performed in the U.S
• Candidate must have lived in the U.S. for three (3) full years out of the last five (5) years
• 3+ years Databricks Platform Expertise – SME Level Proficiency including:
• Databricks, Delta Lake, and Delta Sharing
• Deep experience with distributed computing using Apache Spark
• Knowledge of Spark runtime internals and optimization
• Ability to design and deploy performant end-to-end data architectures
• 4+ years of ETL Pipeline Development building robust, scalable data pipelines
• Hands-on experience with Azure services such as Synapse, Data Factory, or Databricks
• Familiarity with data visualization tools such as Tableau, Power BI, or similar
• MLOps - Working knowledge of ML deployment and operations
• Data Science Methodologies - Statistical analysis, modeling, and interpretation
• Big Data Technologies - Experience beyond Spark with distributed systems
• Experience with deployment pipelines, including Git-based version control and CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices using Terraform for IaC
• Proven experience breaking down complex ideas into manageable components
• Demonstrable experience developing rapid POCs and Prototypes
• History of staying current with evolving data technologies and methodologies
• Strong analytical thinking, attention to detail, and willingness to learn new tools and technologies
• Consulting experience with ability to work directly with clients, executive level stakeholders and manage conflicts
• Databricks certifications - Professional or specialty certifications
• Emergency management domain knowledge a plus
• Advanced proficiency in data engineering and analytics using Python, Expert-level SQL skills for data manipulation and analysis and experiencewith Scala, preferred but not required (Python expertise can substitute)

Benefits

• This position is fully remote

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