Staff Engineer, Data Insights

Simple sense builds, deploys, and sustains the Installation Resilience Platform that enables mission operators to rapidly adapt and respond. The Platform protects critical infrastructure from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed information to monitor, diagnose, and improve response times to incidents. Our adversaries rapidly adopt the latest technology: we help defense users respond in kind.

Simple sense is a non-traditional defense contractor and prime on the Air Force's Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control (IROC) program, which is now expanding to five additional Air Force, Space Force, and Army installations from the one prototype installation, Tyndall Air Force Base.

Our team combines over 100 years of direct mission experience solving hard problems with 50 years technical expertise deploying Dev Sec Ops , cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure, giving us a deep appreciation for our customers' mission and end users' priorities. We build for scale, architecting and prioritizing technical work for long term sustainability.

Simple sense is looking for a Staff Engineer, Data Insights to join our hybrid, US-based team.

The Staff Data Engineer, Insights own the technical strategy, end-to-end delivery, and foundational architecture for the Insights capability, which converts vast amounts of raw data into actionable, human-readable interfaces, alerts, and decision support tools.

This position will drive the technical direction, process improvement, and mentorship for the initial Insights engineering team.

The ideal candidate is an excellent communicator, attentive, and efficient. They can complete work skillfully and independently. The Staff Engineer must be good at giving and receiving constructive feedback.

This position reports to the Head of Engineering
Responsibilities

As the technical anchor for the Insights capability, your responsibilities will focus on technical excellence and team enablement:

• End-to-End Technical Ownership: Serve as the single technical owner for the success of all Insights projects, from initial design to final delivery and maintenance, ensuring the buck stops with you on all technical matters.
• Cross-Functional Technical Guidance: Translate vague, complex business problems (e.g., "improve operational efficiency") into a technical plan that spans application, platform, and data teams.
• System Design & Architecture: Lead whiteboarding sessions, create design documents, and make high-level technical decisions for all core components of the Insights capability (e.g., Visualization Development, Alerting Logic, User Access Layer).
• Force Multiplier & Mentorship: Elevate the entire team by establishing best practices, conducting insightful code reviews, and unblocking teammates who are stuck, prioritizing the team's output over individual coding tasks.
• Hands-on Development: Write code for the most critical or complex parts of the project, setting the technical pattern and standard for others, with a healthy time allocation of approximately 60% on solving technical problems (coding, design, reviews).
• Team Alignment & Process Improvement: Dedicate time (approx. 40%) to planning, cross-team communication, defining scope with Product Managers, breaking down work, and identifying/fixing process issues (e.g., CI/CD pipelines, testing standards).

Requirements

• Extensive professional experience (7-15 years) defining and delivering scalable, user-facing intelligence systems (dashboards, real-time alerts, reporting tools).
• Proven experience acting as a Staff or Principal-level engineer, responsible for a large-scale, cross-functional technical strategy.
• Deep expertise in an AWS environment, including the selection, configuration, and optimization of compute and data services relevant to Insights (e.g., managed visualization services, notification systems).
• Demonstrated ability to navigate and resolve significant technical ambiguity in an ownership role.
• Ability to work a hybrid schedule, primarily based in the Denver metro area, with an expectation of being in the office at least two or three times weekly, and a full week in the office quarterly for planning.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen and able to obtain a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC)
• Must have, or be able to obtain, a Secret Clearance.

Preferred but Not Necessary

• Professional AWS Certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Data Analytics - Specialty).
• Experience in the operational intelligence or industrial technology sectors.

Pay Range: $185,000 - $230,000 per year, depending on your experience, skill, and location.

Our compensation ranges are developed using market benchmarking tools and regularly reviewed to ensure alignment with competitive pay practices and internal equity. In addition to base pay, all employees are eligible for comprehensive benefits.

Competitive Benefits

• Equity
• Medical, Life, Short-Term Disability, and AD&D insurance
• Medical travel coverage
• Dental coverage
• Vision coverage
• 401k matching

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