The Senior Data Engineer designs and maintains data infrastructure for analytics and machine learning. Responsibilities include building scalable pipelines, optimizing SQL, mentoring junior engineers, and ensuring data quality.
The Senior Data Engineer will be responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the data infrastructure that supports analytics, machine learning, and enterprise decision-making. This role will lead the development of scalable big data frameworks, translate complex business and technical requirements into detailed architectural solutions, and deliver high-performing software that drives measurable outcomes.
Key responsibilities include selecting and implementing data solutions, defining hardware and system requirements, and establishing standards and processes for integration projects and initiatives.
The ideal candidate will bring deep SQL expertise and strong software engineering discipline to ensure the reliability, scalability, and quality of data pipelines. In addition to technical execution, the Senior Data Engineer will collaborate closely with engineering, analytics, and product teams, mentor junior engineers, and play a pivotal role in shaping the organization’s technical roadmap.
THIS ROLE REQUIRES 3 DAYS A WEEK IN OUR QUEBEC CITY OFFICE
Major Responsibilities:
- Design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines (batch & streaming) for analytics, reporting, and ML.
- Architect applications and automated tools, translating complex requirements into high-performing solutions.
- Define data/software solutions, including hardware needs, to ensure performance and scalability.
- Establish and enforce standards for data integration, modeling, and schema design (dimensional, star, snowflake).
- Optimize SQL queries and schema performance; ensure data quality, consistency, and validation.
- Monitor, troubleshoot, and tune pipelines, databases, and workloads.
- Implement engineering best practices: version control, CI/CD, testing, documentation, and code reviews.
- Collaborate with engineers to integrate data systems into production.
- Mentor junior engineers and provide cross-team technical support.
- Evaluate and recommend new tools, frameworks, and technologies.
- Ensure compliance with data security, governance, access control, and regulations (GDPR, CCPA).
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor’s in Computer Science or related field; Master’s preferred
- 5+ years in data engineering, software engineering, or data science
- Expert SQL (optimization, advanced joins, windowing, partitioning, indexing)
- Proven Snowflake expertise in data warehousing and analytics
- Strong knowledge of data modeling, engineering best practices, and distributed systems (Spark, Hadoop, Hive, Presto)
- Hands-on experience with ETL/ELT pipelines, API/event/log integration, and workflow orchestration (Airflow/Astronomer required)
- Proficient in DBT for transformation and modeling
- Skilled with AWS data engineering and infrastructure services
- Strong software engineering: clean code, modularization, error handling, CI/CD, automated testing
- Knowledge of object-oriented design, data structures, algorithms, and disaster recovery
- Expertise in scaling and performance optimization of pipelines, databases, and workloads
- Familiar with Python (preferred) and other modern languages
- Ability to analyze complex data sets and deliver actionable insights
- Effective collaborator and mentor with cross-functional teams
- Experience in agile or rapid application development
- Creative, detail-oriented, results-driven, with strong problem-solving and prioritization skills
Lightcast is a global leader in labor market insights with offices in Moscow, ID (US), the United Kingdom, Europe, and India. We work with partners across six continents to help drive economic prosperity and mobility by providing the insights needed to build and develop our people, our institutions and companies, and our communities.
Lightcast is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. Lightcast has always been, and always will be, committed to our diversity of thought and unique perspectives. We seek dynamic professionals from all backgrounds to join our teams, and we encourage our employees to bring their authentic, original, and best selves to work.
Top Skills
Airflow
Astronomer
AWS
Dbt
Elt
ETL
Hadoop
Hive
Presto
Python
Snowflake
Spark
SQL
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