Principal Data Engineer - US Census Bureau

Who we areBixal is a mission-driven, woman-owned small business determined to improve people's lives through human-centered strategies and transformative technologies, with a firm belief that everyone has the right to an effective government.   We deliver on this belief by partnering with leading Federal agencies to design, develop, and deliver powerful customer experiences through holistic digital product solutions and strategic communications initiatives––bringing a high standard and unique creative energy to our clients––and our wonderfully diverse culture is what makes it all possible.   Bixal unites different people with different perspectives from all over the world! We provide our team with an open and empowered environment where collaboration thrives and solutions flourish. 
LocationThis role can work remotely from anywhere in the USA. You must be legally authorized to work in the US.  Bixal does not provide visa sponsorship.
What will you do?We are looking for an experienced Principal Data Engineer to join our growing team of experts. The hire will be responsible for managing the continuous improvement of critical Federal data and data pipeline architectures related to data.census.gov, as well as optimizing data flows for downstream use by cross-functional teams. The ideal candidate is an experienced data pipeline builder and data quality manager who enjoys optimizing systems, while understanding the flow from ingestion points to delivery to syndicators. The Principal Data Engineer will supervise database architects, data engineers, data analysts and data scientists on projects and initiatives. They will serve as a technical program lead on large, complex projects and/or coordinate team efforts with the Government. They will ensure optimal data delivery architecture is consistent. They must be self-directed and comfortable collecting requirements from multiple teams and systems. The right candidate will be excited to positively impact millions of Americans by infusing their knowledge into the Census’ data dissemination programs via data.census.gov and its associated APIs.  
Important Note:This is a full-time proposal position contingent on contract award. 

Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior technical lead on data.census.gov and its associated APIs. 
• Serve as a trusted advisor for engineering and/or analytics development, methodology and delivery. 
• Guide multiple Agile teams to assemble large, complex data sets that meet functional / non-functional business requirements.  
• Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements: automating manual processes, optimizing data delivery, re-designing infrastructure for greater scalability, etc.  
• Supervise the building of infrastructure required for optimal ELT of data from a wide variety of data sources using SQL and ‘big data’ technologies.  
• Manage analytics tools that leverage the data pipeline to provide insights into data quality and other key metrics.  
• Interact with technical assistance teams to assist with data-related technical issues at the Federal and State levels.  
• Work with data and analytics experts to strive for greater functionality in data systems.  

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree.
• Minimum 10 years of experience managing data quality programs or activities.  
• Superb communication skills. 
• Extensive experience with US Census Data table products, including both aggregates and microdata. 
• Recent hands-on experience (within the last 5 years) with the US Census API. 
• Knowledge and experience with developing and managing data quality programs, including operational procedures to manage data and development and use of data management metrics. 
• Knowledge and experience with metadata management, including defining and incorporating metadata standards for business, operational and technical metadata.  
• Knowledge and experience with data storage technologies including relational databases, NoSQL databases and big data platforms.  
• Knowledge and experience with data searching technologies, specifically the Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana platforms. 
• Proficient at building and optimizing data pipelines, architectures and data sets.  
• Experience performing root cause analysis on internal and external data and processes to answer specific business questions and identify opportunities for improvement.  
• Ability to resolve complex issues due to evolving data layouts, formats, and data governance pain points.  
• Experience leading cross-functional teams in a dynamic environment.  
• Experience with AWS cloud services: s3, ec2, RDS.   

Nice to haves

• Working knowledge