Senior Data Engineer Jobs in Silver Spring, MD (NOW HIRING)

Location: Remote
Clearance Level: Active Secret

Rackner is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to lead the design, development, optimization, and operation of enterprise data pipelines and data platform components within the Microsoft Fabric environment.

The Senior Data Engineer will provide hands-on technical leadership across data ingestion, transformation, platform administration, security, automation, and deployment activities. This role will be responsible for implementing scalable medallion architectures, establishing reliable development and deployment practices, and ensuring data platforms meet security, availability, performance, and data quality requirements.

The Senior Data Engineer will also mentor Data Engineers and Associate Data Engineers, provide technical problem-solving support, and help establish engineering standards and best practices across data workstreams.

• Lead the design, development, and optimization of enterprise data ingestion pipelines, transformation logic, and data platform components within Microsoft Fabric
• Design and implement scalable ETL and ELT architectures supporting structured and semi-structured enterprise data
• Configure, administer, and maintain Microsoft Fabric environments, including:
  • Tenant administration
  • Workspace architecture
  • Capacity management
  • Security configuration
  • Environment governance
• Implement and maintain Bronze, Silver, and Gold medallion architecture layers
• Develop data transformation processes incorporating schema validation, cleansing, normalization, enrichment, and reconciliation
• Establish data quality monitoring, validation controls, automated testing, and alerting for pipeline and data-quality failures
• Design and implement development, test, staging, and production environment separation
• Build and maintain CI/CD deployment pipelines for data platform components, pipelines, notebooks, configurations, and related artifacts
• Implement infrastructure-as-code approaches for repeatable, version-controlled data platform deployments
• Develop and optimize Spark, PySpark, SQL, and related data-processing workloads
• Configure and maintain data security controls, including:
  • Encryption
  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
  • Microsoft Entra ID integration
  • Privileged Identity Management
  • Least-privilege access controls
• Support secure integration between Microsoft Fabric and enterprise source systems
• Design and support hybrid connectivity between on-premises and cloud environments
• Troubleshoot complex pipeline, platform, performance, connectivity, and data-quality issues
• Optimize pipelines and data workloads for performance, scalability, reliability, and cost
• Support disaster recovery and business continuity planning for data platforms and pipelines
• Develop, document, and execute rollback, recovery, and restoration procedures
• Conduct recovery and rollback testing to validate continuity procedures
• Establish reusable engineering patterns, standards, and technical documentation for data platform implementation
• Collaborate with Data Architects, Data Governance Specialists, cybersecurity teams, application teams, and source-system owners to define technical solutions
• Participate in architecture reviews and provide technical recommendations for data platform modernization and integration efforts
• Mentor mid-level and Associate Data Engineers
• Review technical implementations and provide guidance on pipeline design, code quality, performance, security, and maintainability
• Provide senior-level technical problem-solving support for complex data engineering challenges
• Support knowledge transfer and operational transition of implemented data platform capabilities

• Significant experience designing and implementing enterprise data pipelines, ETL/ELT processes, and cloud-based data platforms
• Hands-on experience with Microsoft Fabric
• Experience administering or configuring enterprise cloud data environments
• Strong experience with Azure Data Factory or comparable data integration technologies
• Strong SQL proficiency
• Experience with Spark and PySpark for large-scale data processing and transformation
• Experience implementing enterprise ETL/ELT frameworks
• Experience designing and implementing medallion architectures using Bronze, Silver, and Gold data layers
• Experience with schema validation, data cleansing, normalization, reconciliation, and data quality controls
• Experience developing CI/CD pipelines for data platform deployments
• Experience implementing infrastructure-as-code
• Experience with source control, automated deployment, and environment promotion processes
• Understanding of cloud security principles, including RBAC, identity integration, encryption, and least-privilege access
• Experience troubleshooting complex data pipeline, platform, and integration issues
• Experience supporting production data environments with availability, reliability, and performance requirements
• Strong technical documentation and communication skills
• Experience mentoring or providing technical leadership to other engineers
• Active Secret clearance

• Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate
• Advanced experience with Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse architecture
• Experience configuring Microsoft Fabric tenants, capacities, workspaces, and deployment pipelines
• Experience with Microsoft Entra ID and Privileged Identity Management
• Experience with Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, or comparable CI/CD platforms
• Experience with Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates, or comparable infrastructure-as-code technologies
• Experience designing automated data quality monitoring and alerting
• Experience supporting hybrid on-premises and cloud data environments
• Experience implementing disaster recovery, rollback, and business continuity procedures for enterprise data platforms
• Experience with enterprise data governance, metadata management, lineage, and security controls
• Experience working within Department of Defense or other federal data environments

About Rackner
Rackner is a software consultancy focused on building mission-critical systems for the U.S. government. Our teams work across cloud platforms, DevSecOps, AI/ML, distributed systems, and modern software engineering initiatives supporting federal agencies and national security missions. Rackner engineers and technical teams collaborate closely with leadership, program teams, and mission stakeholders to design, demonstrate, and improve software systems that address complex operational challenges.

Benefits & Perks
At Rackner, we believe that when our people grow, our company grows with them, and we are committed to supporting their growth, development and success. We are proud to offer a creative and forward-thinking environment that includes:
• Company-supported certifications aligned to current and future program work, 
including cloud, Kubernetes, DevSecOps, security, AI/ML, project management, and 
related technical areas
• Clear advancement tracks and future leadership opportunities
• 401(k) with 100% match up to 6%
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life, and disability coverage
• Generous PTO and paid holidays
• Home-office equipment plan and remote work support
• Fitness and wellness reimbursement
• Weekly pay schedule and modern perks, including team events

Equal Opportunity
Rackner is an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or other protected characteristics.