Data Engineer, CGIR

University Overview

The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12 highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn’s distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. As an employer Penn has been ranked nationally on many occasions with the most recent award from Forbes who named Penn one of America’s Best Large Employers in 2023.

Penn offers a unique working environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of educational, cultural, and recreational activities. With its historical significance and landmarks, lively cultural offerings, and wide variety of atmospheres, Philadelphia is the perfect place to call home for work and play.

The University offers a competitive benefits package that includes excellent healthcare and tuition benefits for employees and their families, generous retirement benefits, a wide variety of professional development opportunities, supportive work and family benefits, a wealth of health and wellness programs and resources, and much more.

Posted Job Title

Data Engineer, CGIR

Job Profile Title

Data Analyst D

Job Description Summary

The Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR) is an unconditional cash-transfer research center headquartered at the
School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. CGIR conducts applied cash-transfer studies and pilot designs in concert with community-based organizations and government stakeholders to add to the empirical scholarship on cash, economic mobility, and poverty. CGIR is currently conducting the world’s largest multi-site evaluation of nearly 40 guaranteed income pilots across the nation as part of The American Guaranteed Income Studies (AmGIS). Using a common research design and a core survey across its pilot sites, the aims of AmGIS are to (1) facilitate comparisons across pilot sites, and (2) create a singular master dataset pooling data from more than 19,000 study participants across treatment and control groups. In addition, CGIR is augmenting its original survey data with administrative data from across its diverse pilot sites.

The Data Engineer will work closely with CGIR’s Biostatistician, Center Leadership, and Research Scientists to design and manage the data infrastructure for the AmGIS sites described above. This portfolio of work includes: (1) the organization and structuring of raw data; (2) the oversight of data quality assurance, cleaning, and control activities; (3) the collation of individual site-specific datasets into a singular, master dataset; (4) the integration of original, survey data with administrative data; and (5) the security, integrity, and storage of data sets, codebooks, coding, and other associated documentation. In sum, the Data Engineer will be responsible for all tasks related to data acquisition; data transformation and cleaning; data integration; and data storage and security. In addition, the Data Engineer will also supervise student research assistants.

A bachelor’s degree and 3 -5 years’ experience is required. Preferably in computer engineering, information systems or a related field is required, and an advanced graduate degree is preferred. A minimum of 1-2 years of professional experience in data engineering, cloud platforms or database is mandatory with demonstrated expertise in coding and programming in both SQL and Python, data warehousing, machine learning, cloud computing, data integration tools, and data security. Additional requisite skills include strong critical thinking, interpersonal, communication, problem-solving skills, and experience supervising. This is a hybrid position with a requirement of 2-3 days per week in-person on campus.

Contingent upon grant funding.

Job Description

Job Responsibilities:

Data Infrastructure and Management:

• Develop robust data cleaning and validation pipelines with comprehensive error checki