Data Engineer – Legacy Systems & AI Workflows

Groundswell is building a mission-focused data platform with AI-enabled capabilities designed for controlled environments. As a Data Engineer, you will help establish secure and dependable ingestion, integration, and pipeline operations, with an emphasis on ETL/ELT reliability, data quality automation, and governance.

What you’ll do

• Design, develop, and operate batch and streaming ETL/ELT pipelines that ingest data from multiple structured and semi-structured sources into secure cloud data platforms.
• Onboard legacy data sources by reviewing schemas, mappings, interfaces, validation rules, ownership, and operational support procedures.
• Implement automated data-quality checks for completeness, accuracy, consistency, timeliness, and referential integrity, including monitoring and alerting that drives action.
• Automate deployments and pipeline operations using SOAP APIs, workflow orchestration, and environment-specific configurations.
• Troubleshoot pipeline and distributed system failures using logs, metrics, lineage, and other operational signals, and communicate root causes and recovery plans clearly.
• Partner with software engineers, cloud engineers, data scientists, security teams, architects, and customer stakeholders to convert mission needs into measurable data products.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of professional data engineering experience, including production pipeline development and operations.
• Proficiency in Python, Java, R, or another programming language used for data engineering.
• Experience with legacy systems that use SOAP APIs for data interaction.
• Experience implementing data-quality frameworks, validation processes, monitoring, and alerting for production pipelines.
• Working knowledge of data security, access controls, encryption, auditability, and governance in a regulated, restricted, or compliance-oriented environment.
• Experience working with APIs (SOAP/REST) and structured data formats including JSON, XML, CSV, and Parquet.
• Ability to document technical decisions and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and customer stakeholders.
• U.S. Citizen status per contract requirements.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust Clearance in accordance with contract requirements.

Technologies

• Python, Java, R
• SOAP APIs, SOAP/REST
• JSON, XML, CSV, Parquet
• Jupyter Notebook, numpy, pandas
• AWS, Databricks
• LLM, AI/ML, C3.ai

Preferred qualifications

• Experience building preprocessing, chunking, filtering, metadata-enrichment, or evaluation pipelines for LLM and other AI/ML workflows.
• Experience operating data platforms with segmented networks, limited connectivity, strict change control, or formal authorization requirements.
• Strong SQL expertise including query optimization, data modeling, joins, window functions, and analysis of large datasets.
• Experience with Jupyter Notebook or equivalent tools for analyzing data.
• Hands-on experience with Python libraries such as numpy and pandas.
• Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud provider, with AWS strongly preferred.
• Extra consideration for C3.ai experience.
• Active Public Trust Clearance.
• Preference for candidates local to the Washington, DC metro area.

Compensation and location

• Location: McLean, VA (onsite)
• Salary range: USD 89,886 - 175,444 per year

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans
• Flexible Spending Account
• 4% 401K Match (immediate vesting)
• Paid Time Off
• Tuition reimbursement, certification programs, and professional development
• Flexible work schedule
• On-site gym and childcare option

Certifications

• AWS Data Engineer Certification, Databricks, cloud data engineering, or other relevant professional certification is preferred.

Additional notes: Groundswell does not accept unsolicited resumes through or from search firms or staffing agencies. All unsolicited resumes will be considered the property of Groundswell, and Groundswell will not be obligated to pay a placement fee.

Disability accessibility accommodation: If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation as part of the employment selection process, please contact [email protected] or 703-639-1777.

Additional resources: EO 13496 Notification of Employee Rights under NLRA; Know your rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal.