Freelance Geospatial Data Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Vantor is forging the new frontier of spatial intelligence, helping decision makers and operators navigate what’s happening now and shape what’s coming next.  Vantor is a place for problem solvers, changemakers, and go-getters—where people are working together to help our customers see the world differently, and in doing so, be seen differently. Come be part of a mission, not just a job, where you can: Shape your own future, build the next big thing, and change the world.

To be eligible for this position, you must be a U.S. Citizen. This position requires an active U.S. Government security clearance, applicants who do not currently hold the required clearance will not be eligible for consideration. Employment for cleared roles is contingent upon verification of clearance status.

Export Control/ITAR: Certain roles may be subject to U.S. export control laws, requiring U.S. person status as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

Please review the job details below.

This position requires an active U.S. Government Security Clearance at the TS/SCI level with required Polygraph.

Build Mission-Critical Geospatial Data and Analytics Capabilities

This role is built for a cleared geospatial technologist who can bridge two mission offices: one focused on geospatial data curation, ArcGIS Portal products, and operational visualization; the other focused on data processing, analytics, and Tableau-driven reporting.

The ideal candidate is part geospatial programmer, part data librarian, and part visualization developer. You will use Python to process and analyze large geospatial datasets, manage and curate authoritative data holdings, maintain ArcGIS Portal content, and build dashboards, web maps, feature layers, and visual analytics products that help mission users make faster, better-informed decisions.

This is a hands-on role for someone who can work independently across offices, engage directly with mission customers, and turn complex spatial and tabular datasets into trusted, discoverable, and decision-ready products.

Responsibilities:

What You’ll Work On

You will support two complementary mission areas:

Geospatial Data Curation, Portal, and Visualization
Manage, curate, publish, and maintain geospatial datasets, hosted feature layers, web maps, dashboards, and data products in ArcGIS Portal. Ensure mission users have access to accurate, well-organized, current, and usable geospatial information.

Data Processing, Analytics, and Tableau Reporting
Use Python, Tableau, ArcGIS, and related tools to process large datasets, automate workflows, prepare data for analysis, and build visual analytics products that reveal patterns, trends, anomalies, and operationally relevant insights.

What You’ll Do

Partner with mission users to understand geospatial data needs, analytic questions, visualization requirements, and operational workflows.

Identify, acquire, clean, transform, validate, curate, and publish large geospatial and tabular datasets from diverse sources.

Develop Python scripts and tools to automate geospatial data processing, quality control, enrichment, transformation, and publication workflows.

Manage and update ArcGIS Portal content, including hosted feature layers, map services, web maps, dashboards, data hubs, and related geospatial products.

Build and maintain Tableau dashboards, reports, and analytic visualizations used by the data processing office and mission stakeholders.

Apply sound cartographic design, symbology, labeling, layer management, metadata practices, and performance tuning to improve the usability of geospatial products.

Integrate structured, unstructured, tabular, and spatial datasets into cohesive analytical and visualization environments.

Support geospatial data library functions, including dataset organization, metadata creation, version management, quality control, discoverability, and lifecycle maintenance.

Develop documentation, data dictionaries, standard operating procedures, user guidance, and technical recommendations that support repeatable data management and visualization workflows.

Work independently across two office environments while collaborating with multidisciplinary teams and communicating technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Active TS/SCI security clearance with polygraph.
• Bachelor’s degree in Geography, GIS, Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 12+ years of professional experience in geospatial technology, software development, data engineering, data analysis, or a related technical field.
• Strong Python experience for geospatial data processing, automation, transformation, analysis, and workflow improvement.
• Demonstrated experience working with large geospatial datasets, including cleaning, formatting, joining, enriching, validating, and preparing data for analysis or publication.
• Hands-on experience with ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Portal, or ArcGIS Online, including publishing and maintaining hosted feature layers, web maps, dashboards, and geospatial content.
• Experience curating geospatial data holdings, including organizing datasets, maintaining metadata, improving discoverability, and ensuring data quality.
• Experience developing dashboards, reports, or analytic visualizations in Tableau or a comparable business intelligence platform.
• Understanding of geospatial data formats, projections, coordinate systems, spatial joins, geoprocessing workflows, cartographic principles, and spatial data management.
• Experience with relational databases, preferably PostgreSQL/PostGIS, for storing, querying, and managing spatial or tabular data.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, and customer engagement skills.
• Proven ability to work independently with minimal guidance while coordinating effectively across teams, offices, and mission stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced Tableau experience, including dashboard development, calculated fields, filters, data preparation, publishing, and maintaining products for operational users.
• Experience with ArcGIS Pro, ArcPy, GeoPandas, Shapely, Fiona, Rasterio, GDAL, QGIS, or similar geospatial tools and libraries.
• Experience building repeatable data pipelines for geospatial data ingestion, processing, validation, and publication.
• Experience with cloud-hosted datasets, Amazon S3, ArcGIS Hub-style environments, or secure integrations between enterprise data repositories and ArcGIS Portal.
• Experience with PostgreSQL/PostGIS performance tuning, spatial indexing, and geospatial query optimization.
• Experience with Elasticsearch, Kibana, or similar search, analytics, and visualization tools.
• Familiarity with data governance, data stewardship, metadata standards, data quality, Agile practices, Jira, Confluence, DevOps principles, version control, or containerized workflows.
• Background in spatial statistics, predictive analytics, machine learning, or advanced geospatial modeling.

Pay Transparency: To support pay transparency, Vantor includes salary ranges in all U.S. job postings. Starting pay for this role will fall within the listed range and will be based on factors such as experience, qualifications, skills, location, and market conditions. Candidates who meet the minimum requirements for the role should not expect to receive compensation at the top of the range. The listed range reflects the expected pay for this position, and final offers will be determined based on each candidate’s experience, expertise, and alignment with the role.

● The base pay for this position within the Washington, DC metropolitan area is: $137,000.00 - $182,000.00 - $200,200.00 annually.

For all other states, we use geographic cost of labor as an input to develop market-driven ranges for our roles, and as such, each location where we hire may have a different range.

Benefits: Vantor offers a competitive total rewards package that goes beyond the standard, including a robust 401(k) with company match, mental health resources, and unique perks like student loan repayment assistance, adoption reimbursement and pet insurance to support all aspects of your life. You can find more information on our benefits at: 

The application window is three days from the date the job is posted and will remain posted until a qualified candidate has been identified for hire.  If the job is reposted regardless of reason, it will remain posted three days from the date the job is reposted and will remain reposted until a qualified candidate has been identified for hire. 

The date of posting can be found on Vantor‘s Career page at the top of each job posting.

To apply, submit your application via Vantor‘s Career page.

EEO Policy: Vantor is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace. We believe in fostering an environment where all team members feel respected, valued, and encouraged to share their ideas. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, protected veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.