Freelance Data Platform Engineer Jobs in Michigan

We are actively seeking a Data Platform Engineer to build and evolve the modern cloud data platform that powers analytics, internal applications, automation, and AI initiatives across the organization. Data engineering is the core of this role: designing pipelines, building data models, and ensuring data quality is where you will spend most of your time, but the role doesn't stop at the data warehouse. In the AI era, the highest-impact data engineers can also ship an AWS Lambda, write Terraform, build CI/CD pipelines, and develop lightweight internal tools. You'll build reliable data pipelines first and expand your expertise in cloud infrastructure, platform automation, and AI enablement along the way.

• Design and maintain scalable ELT/ETL pipelines, integrating data from APIs, SaaS platforms, databases, and event streams
• Build reusable data models and data products in Snowflake, optimizing for performance, reliability, and cost
• Develop AWS Lambda functions and event-driven workflows
• Build lightweight internal applications and automation tools (Streamlit, APIs, utilities)
• Collaborate with engineering teams to expose data through services and applications
• Implement CI/CD for data and platform components, and manage infrastructure using Terraform or other Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools
• Improve observability, monitoring, alerting, and operational automation
• Implement data quality checks and platform reliability best practices
• Prepare trusted datasets for analytics and AI use cases, improving metadata, documentation, and data discoverability
• Support internal AI and automation initiatives

• 3+ years of experience in Data Engineering, Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or a related role
• Strong Python and SQL skills
• Experience with Snowflake or another cloud data warehouse
• Experience with Git and CI/CD pipelines
• Hands-on experience with two or three of the following: dbt, Airflow (or another workflow orchestration tool), AWS Lambda (or other serverless application development), Terraform (or another IaC tool) — we'd rather hire someone who learns quickly across the stack than someone who simply checks every box

• Nice to have: Streamlit or other lightweight internal application frameworks, Docker and/or Kubernetes, REST API development, Snowflake Cortex or other AI/LLM technologies
• Systems thinker: understands how data, applications, and infrastructure work together, with strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills
• Strong communicator: clearly explains technical decisions and tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical audiences, and collaborates effectively with engineers, analysts, and business stakeholders
• Accountable: takes full ownership of the reliability and maintainability of the systems they build
• Resourceful: curious about new cloud, data, and AI technologies, and always looking for opportunities to automate, simplify, and improve workflows
• Productive: pragmatic; balances technical excellence with delivering business value
• Ability to work Eastern Time Zone hours (hybrid/remote)

Our technology stack: AWS Snowflake dbt Airflow Python SQL Terraform GitHub CI/CD Streamlit Tableau AI/LLM technologies

$85,000 - $95,000 a year

Career Now Brands brings creative marketing solutions to recruitment and enrollment practices in the trucking, education and job distribution industries. Our flagship products - CDL Job Now, Career School Now and RocketPost - help build our clients' businesses while impacting millions of lives by boosting employment and enrollments across the U.S.

This position will be in our new downtown Royal Oak headquarters. We recently renovated a large industrial warehouse into a modern, new office that embodies the culture and character of Detroit's most innovative tech startup.

Our people live four core values: Fearless, Accountable, Productive, and Resourceful. If that's how you work, you'll fit right in.

To learn more about our company, please visit www.careernowbrands.com

Career Now Brands is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other occupationally irrelevant criteria.