Data Platform Engineer

Umbra is an American space technology company delivering advanced systems, from sensors to spacecraft, that empower customers worldwide with unmatched access to critical information from space. Our mission is simple and ambitious: redefine space—for people, systems, and missions in every domain. Umbra’s ecosystem operates through three business units:
Remote Sensing (the data), Space Systems (the components), and Mission Solutions (the platforms).Together, our teams develop capabilities that deliver persistent access, resilient performance, and mission-ready solutions, advancing U.S. space leadership while keeping the world safe and informed.

Remote Sensing is where Umbra got its start, and our agile Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) constellation remains the most capable on the market. We transform satellite data into real-world, actionable insights that strengthen U.S. national security and intelligence, support disaster response, and advance scientific discovery. Our team delivers data at scale with unmatched quality, persistence, and the speed and responsiveness our partners demand.

If you want to work on cutting-edge space technology that’s redefining what’s possible in remote sensing, you belong here at Umbra.

We are seeking a Senior/Staff Data Platform Engineer to lead our data infrastructure architecture. The individual filling this position will collaborate with product owners and multidisciplinary engineering teams to design, develop, and maintain the data systems that support our autonomous satellite operations, analytics, and internal decision‑making. They will play a key role in Umbra’s efforts toward redefining how space radar data is consumed.

This position is based on-site in either our Santa Barbara/Goleta, CA office, Arlington, VA office, or Reston, VA office (coming soon).

• Design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines and infrastructure to process, model, and analyze large volumes of satellite, operations, and business data
• Develop and optimize data models, data warehouses, lakehouse patterns, and dbt transformations to support internal analytics, machine learning applications, and operational decision‑making
• Build and operate analytics and data platform capabilities using tools such as Databricks, dbt, Omni Analytics, and related cloud services
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to understand data requirements and ensure data quality, reliability, performance, and usability
• Implement best practices for data governance, reliability, security, compliance, lineage, cost management, and observability

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Data Science, or equivalent experience.
• 15+ years of professional experience as a Data Engineer or similar roles.
• Strong proficiency in SQL and experience with data warehousing, lakehouse architecture, and analytics engineering concepts.
• Proficiency in data pipeline development using Python and SQL, utilizing version control and CI/CD best practices.
• Proficiency with analytics and visualization tools such as Omni Analytics, Tableau, Power BI, or similar.
• Experience with Databricks, Apache Hadoop Ecosystem (HDFS, Spark, HBase, etc), or similar large‑scale data processing and lakehouse platforms.
• Experience with dbt or similar data transformation and modeling frameworks.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure for building reliable data storage and processing.
• Familiarity with monitoring and observability solutions such as Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus, New Relic, Splunk, or similar.
• Effective communication skills, ability to work collaboratively in a team environment, and willingness to learn new skills and technology.
• Experience working in the aerospace industry.
• Experience with mission scheduling software and/or schedule optimization.
• Experience developing SAR image processing/formation applications.
• Experience with Infrastructure‑as‑Code, Dev Ops, Identity and Access Management, and Developer Platforms.
• Experience building custom GIS applications, STAC, or other imagery catalog APIs.
• Experience with semantic layers, data catalogs,…