Lead Data Engineer

Primary Talent Partners has a new contract opening for a Lead Data Engineer with our large power and utilities client in Charlotte, NC. This is a 12-month contract with a potential for extension.

Pay: $83.00 - $93.00/hr; W2 contract, no PTO, no Benefits. ACA-compliant supplemental package available for enrollment. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States and must be able to sit on Primary Talent Partners W2 without sponsorship.

Description

• Core Responsibilities:
• Lead the design, architecture, and implementation of enterprise data engineering solutions across the AWS ecosystem
• Collaborate with Lead Developers, Data Scientists, Architects, Product Owners, and business stakeholders to define technical strategy and scalable solutions
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to Data Engineers and development teams, promoting engineering excellence and best practices
• Drive key architectural decisions in partnership with Data Architects and Solution Architects to ensure scalability, security, reliability, and maintainability
• Design and oversee data warehouse and data lake solutions that balance business usability, performance, and long-term sustainability
• Establish engineering standards for data modeling, ETL frameworks, pipeline reliability, monitoring, and operational excellence
• Lead end-to-end solution delivery, ensuring alignment with business requirements, enterprise architecture standards, and regulatory requirements
• Oversee production support and operational management of AWS-based data platforms, driving root-cause analysis and performance optimization initiatives
• Champion data quality, governance, observability, and data stewardship practices across platforms and teams
• Identify opportunities to modernize data architecture and improve operational efficiency through automation and cloud-native technologies

Core Experience and Abilities:

• Ability to lead hands-on development efforts while providing technical direction, code reviews, and engineering oversight across multiple initiatives
• Experience establishing development environments, infrastructure standards, security controls, and migration strategies across multiple AWS accounts and environments
• Ability to architect, develop, and govern enterprise-scale data pipelines, ETL processes, data ingestion frameworks, and orchestration workflows
• Proven ability to identify data gaps, define strategic remediation plans, and implement scalable automation solutions that improve analytical capabilities across the organization
• Ability to design and implement highly reliable data pipelines with strong focus on data quality, observability, resiliency, and operational supportability
• Experience building and optimizing large-scale data warehousing solutions that prioritize both business user experience and system performance
• Ability to drive technical decision-making, influence architectural direction, and effectively communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Proven track record mentoring engineers, fostering technical growth, and building high-performing data engineering teams
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives involving data engineering, analytics, architecture, platform engineering, and business stakeholders
• Strong problem-solving and leadership skills with the ability to manage competing priorities in fast-paced enterprise environments
• Experience building AI-ready data pipelines and ML workflows, including feature engineering and MLOps.
• Proficiency in Python, SQL, Spark, and Generative AI technologies for scalable data and analytics solutions.
• Hands-on experience with AWS, Azure, or Databricks and cloud-based AI/data platforms.
• Knowledge of LLMs, RAG, and vector databases to support AI-powered applications and intelligent search.
• Strong understanding of data governance, quality, security, and responsible AI practices.

Preferred Qualifications:

• AWS Certified Data Engineer, AWS Solutions Architect, or equivalent cloud certifications
• Experience implementing enterprise data governance and metadata management platforms
• Experience with real-time analytics, event-driven architectures, and streaming data platforms
• Knowledge of modern data architecture patterns including Data Mesh, Lakehouse, and domain-oriented design
• Experience leading large-scale cloud transformation or enterprise data modernization programs

Core Technical Skills:

• 8+ years of experience in Data Engineering with at least 5+ years working extensively within AWS ecosystems
• Expert-level experience with AWS services including S3, EMR, Glue Jobs, Lambda, Athena, CloudTrail, SNS, SQS, CloudWatch, and Step Functions
• Experience creating AI applications with AWS Bedrock
• Strong experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale data lake and data warehouse solutions using Lake Formation, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Athena
• Extensive experience with Kafka-based streaming architectures, preferably Confluent Kafka
• Advanced SQL and data modeling expertise, including dimensional modeling, data vault, and large-scale data warehousing solutions
• Deep experience designing, developing, and optimizing scalable, resilient data pipelines within AWS environments
• Strong understanding of distributed data processing frameworks, particularly PySpark and EMR
• Expert knowledge of database management principles, performance tuning, and data architecture best practices
• Advanced Python development skills with extensive hands-on experience using PySpark
• Expertise in Infrastructure as Code using Terraform
• Experience designing and implementing CI/CD frameworks using GitHub and GitHub Actions
• Deep knowledge of AWS IAM roles, policies, governance, and security best practices
• Strong experience with workflow orchestration tools such as AWS Step Functions, Apache Airflow, or equivalent platforms
• Experience leading cloud migration, modernization, and enterprise data platform initiatives
• Strong understanding of data governance, metadata management, data quality frameworks, and observability principles

Primary Talent Partners is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, gender identity, or any other factor protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.

If you are a person with a disability needing assistance with the application or at any point in the hiring process, please contact us at [email protected]

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