Senior Data Engineer

Senior Data Engineer

Location: North Seattle or Remote, Pacific Time Zone only

About the Opportunity

Seattle Search Group is partnering with a growing organization to identify an experienced Senior Data Engineer to lead the development and ongoing operation of its enterprise data environment.

This is a highly hands-on role combining senior-level data engineering with technical leadership. The Senior Data Engineer will take ownership of critical databases, data warehouses, and cloud-based data pipelines while providing leadership to a small data team.

The environment is heavily Microsoft-focused, including Microsoft Fabric, Azure, Azure DevOps, Power BI, PySpark, Python, and T-SQL.

This position is ideal for someone who enjoys building systems rather than simply maintaining them. The successful candidate will be comfortable working independently, solving complex production issues, improving architecture, and creating reliable data processes that support both business operations and analytics.

Key Responsibilities

Data Architecture & Engineering

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable enterprise data warehouse solutions using Microsoft Fabric, including Warehouse and Lakehouse environments.
• Build and maintain fact and dimension models supporting operational reporting and analytics.
• Develop structured data environments using Medallion architecture concepts, including Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers.
• Improve data storage, processing performance, query efficiency, and overall platform scalability.
• Establish technical standards and best practices for the organization's data environment.

Data Pipelines & Integration

• Build and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines using PySpark, Python, SQL, and Azure technologies.
• Develop reliable processes for moving and transforming data between multiple business systems.
• Monitor production pipelines and proactively address failures, bottlenecks, and data-quality issues.
• Establish monitoring, alerting, and recovery processes for critical data workflows.
• Troubleshoot issues across ingestion, transformation, database, and storage environments.

Database Engineering

• Develop and optimize advanced T-SQL, including stored procedures, functions, views, and complex queries.
• Perform database and query performance tuning.
• Develop indexing strategies for transactional and analytical workloads.
• Maintain standards around database design, documentation, and naming conventions.
• Support database reliability, availability, and performance.

Azure DevOps & CI/CD

• Build and maintain CI/CD processes within Azure DevOps.
• Manage automated deployments for databases, data models, and pipelines.
• Maintain version control and testing practices for data-related development.
• Support controlled releases of schema changes, stored procedures, and pipeline updates across environments.

Data Governance & Security

• Help establish standards around data governance, security, integrity, and reliability.
• Maintain appropriate role-based access controls.
• Support data-security practices for sensitive information and regulated environments.
• Oversee backup, recovery, and disaster-recovery processes.
• Perform ongoing validation of data accuracy and pipeline outputs.

Technical Leadership

• Provide technical direction and oversight to a small team supporting database administration and business intelligence/reporting.
• Establish and reinforce data engineering and database best practices.
• Mentor team members while remaining actively involved in engineering work.
• Help prioritize technical initiatives and resolve complex production issues.

Business & Technical Partnership

• Partner with operations, analysts, developers, and other stakeholders to understand business requirements.
• Translate business needs into scalable technical solutions.
• Provide guidance around data modeling, architecture, reporting, and pipeline design.
• Maintain clear documentation so systems and processes can be effectively supported over time.

Qualifications

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related discipline preferred. Equivalent professional experience will also be considered.

Experience

• 7+ years of professional experience in data engineering, database engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• Significant hands-on experience developing and supporting production data pipelines.
• Strong experience with PySpark and distributed data processing.
• Advanced T-SQL skills, including complex query development, indexing, and performance optimization.
• Experience building or supporting enterprise data warehouses and dimensional data models.
• Experience with Microsoft Fabric or comparable modern cloud data platforms such as Azure Synapse or Databricks.
• Experience developing and managing CI/CD pipelines through Azure DevOps.
• Experience operating business-critical data environments with a high degree of independence.
• Previous experience providing technical leadership or oversight to other data professionals.

Technical Skills

Required / Highly Desired

• PySpark
• Python
• T-SQL
• Microsoft Fabric
• Azure DevOps
• Data warehousing
• ETL/ELT architecture
• CI/CD
• Dimensional data modeling
• Production pipeline monitoring and troubleshooting

Additional Experience Helpful

• Azure SQL
• Azure Data Factory
• Azure Functions
• Logic Apps
• Power BI
• DAX
• PowerShell
• Kimball modeling
• Medallion architecture

What We're Looking For

The strongest candidate will be a senior-level engineer who can take ownership of a complex data environment without requiring significant day-to-day direction. This person should be comfortable moving between architecture, hands-on development, troubleshooting, team leadership, and collaboration with non-technical stakeholders.

Strong candidates will bring excellent problem-solving skills, attention to data quality and reliability, and the ability to identify and implement improvements rather than simply maintain existing processes.