Senior Database Engineer Jobs in Illinois (NOW HIRING)

job purpose:

The Sr. Data Engineer will play a key role in delivering fairlife's ambition of building a best-in-class Decision Intelligence (DI) ecosystem. This role designs, builds, and operates the pipelines, data models, and reusable frameworks that turn data from across our enterprise and factories into trusted, analytics-ready products in our lakehouse. We are looking for an engineer with natural intellectual curiosity who takes genuine pride in the quality of their designs, treats solution architecture as a core craft of data engineering, and is energized by the new use cases the age of AI presents, helping make our data platform reliable for people and legible to AI systems alike.

responsibilities:

• Design, implement, and operationalize batch and streaming data pipelines that integrate enterprise and factory data sources (ERP, IIoT, SaaS applications, APIs) into our lakehouses
• Support development and maintenance of dimensional data models (star schemas) in our lakehouses that deliver consistent, well-governed metrics to the business
• Build reusable frameworks and shared Python libraries (ingestion patterns, incremental loads, telemetry, alerting) that accelerate the whole team, not just one project
• Own the engineering lifecycle end to end: Git branching, pull requests, CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps, automated testing, and environment promotion
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize solutions for reliability, performance, and cost, building data quality validation and pipeline observability into solutions from the start
• Embed security and governance into every solution: identity-based authentication, secret management, access control, and responsible handling of sensitive data
• Contribute to our growing AI-facing platform capabilities, including semantic search indexes, AI-ready data interfaces, and agent tooling
• Partner with stakeholders across manufacturing and business functions, translating their needs into well-designed solutions and communicating to non-technical audiences
• Document, share, and support the technical growth of fellow team members

skills/qualifications required:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or related field AND 5+ years of data engineering experience (manufacturing/CPG preferred)
• Expert-level SQL and strong Python (building shared libraries and frameworks, not just scripts); hands-on Spark/PySpark for large-scale transformation
• Strong grounding in data warehousing and dimensional modeling (star schemas, Kimball)
• Proficiency with Azure data services such as SQL databases, Event Hubs, Functions, Data Factory, Key Vault, and Microsoft Entra
• Experience with Azure DevOps or similar: Git, YAML CI/CD pipelines, artifact/package management, and disciplined code review practices
• Lakehouse experience (Delta Lake, medallion architecture) in Fabric or Databricks preferred
• Working knowledge of KQL (Azure Data Explorer, Eventhouse, or Application Insights) a plus
• Exposure to RAG/semantic search or MCP tool integrations a plus
• Experience with manufacturing/factory data (MES, historians, IIoT streaming) a plus
• Excellent communication skills, comfortable engaging non-technical stakeholders
• Detail-oriented self-starter with a growth mindset and ability to handle ambiguity
• A natural team player with a habit of helping, documenting, and sharing

how fairlife nourishes you:

At fairlife, we believe in better — and that includes how we support our people. We offer a comprehensive suite of benefits and wellbeing resources designed to support you physically, emotionally, socially, and financially, both in and out of work.

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, effective day one!
• Supplemental health plans (hospital indemnity, accident, and critical illness insurance)
• Paid Time Off to recharge and support work-life balance
• Paid parental leave & adoption assistance (up to $10,000)
• Parental support & family care benefits, including childcare resources and lactation support
• 401(k) to support retirement planning with up to 9% in employer match
• Wellness reimbursement (up to $500 for qualified wellbeing expenses)
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for emotional wellbeing and work-life support
• Company-paid life insurance and short-term disability
• Employer HSA funding (for HDHP participants)
• Tuition reimbursement (up to $10,000) and student loan repayment ($200/month)
• Learning & development programs to unlock your full potential
• Rewards & recognition, matching gifts, free product, and Business Resource Groups

fairlife's nour!sh program is designed to meet you where you are — supporting your individual wellbeing journey while enabling you to do your best work every day.

This position requires current authorization to work in the United States. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

position location: Chicago, IL

reports to: Director, Data Engineering

travel requirements: <10%

exempt/nonexempt: Exempt