Data Engineer

Overview

We are looking for a Data Engineer with expertise in Databricks, AWS, and data labeling tools to join our data team. This role will focus on data transformations, quality, integrity, and labeling processes to support AI/ML initiatives and analytics. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience with Databricks, Apache Spark, and AWS services and be familiar with data annotation platforms for training high-quality machine learning models.

They will own the pipelines, tooling, and data models that power analytics, ML, and product features, design resilient ingestion and transformation workflows, enforce data quality and lineage, and make high-quality, well-governed data easily accessible across the org.

• Data Modeling & Storage:
  Design bronze/silver/gold layers, dimensional models, and lakehouse/warehouse schemas optimized for cost, performance, and usability.
• Orchestration & Automation:
  Implement workflow schedulers (Airflow/Dagster/dbt jobs), CI/CD for data, and automated backfills/reprocessing.
• Data Quality & Governance:
  Define validation rules, anomaly detection, lineage tracking, and documentation (data contracts, catalogs).
• Observability & Ops:
  Instrument pipelines with metrics, alerts, and SLAs; troubleshoot incidents and drive root-cause analyses.
• Performance & Cost Optimization:
  Tune queries, partitioning, file sizes, caching, and compute resources to minimize latency and spend.
• Collaboration:
  
  Partner with analytics, ML, and product teams to understand requirements, prioritize work, and deliver self-serve datasets.

• 3–5+ years building production-grade data pipelines and models (or equivalent experience).
• Hands-on experience with data warehouses/lake houses and orchestration tools. Databricks experience preferred.
• Familiarity with streaming platforms and CDC tooling.
• Solid grasp of schema design, batch vs. streaming trade-offs, and data reliability patterns.
• Proven ability to document, communicate, and collaborate across teams.

• Seniority level:
  Mid-Senior level
• Employment type:
  
  Full-time
• Job function:
  Information Technology
• Industries:
  Public Safety

Location:

Fremont, CA (Headquarters). Hybrid workplace: employees live within 50 miles of an office location (Fremont, CA; Tucson, AZ; Washington, D.C.; Iselin, NJ) and are expected to work onsite 3 days per week. Travel: 15%.

The posted salary is a good-faith estimate and may vary based on education, experience, and location. Sound Thinking is an equal employment opportunity employer.

Sound Thinking provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. Sound Thinking maintains a drug-free workplace policy. Sound Thinking prohibits workplace harassment and provides accommodation on request for applicants with disabilities.