The Associate Data Engineer role at CleanSlate Technology Group (CSTG) sits within the Data and AI Practice, supporting client delivery through scoped development, testing, and documentation work. You will help build and maintain data pipelines and platform components used for analytics, machine learning, and AI use cases.
Role Overview
As an Associate Data Engineer, you contribute to client data engineering projects by completing defined development, testing, and documentation tasks with guidance from experienced engineers. The work focuses on execution, learning, and growth using established engineering patterns, clearly scoped assignments, and feedback from more senior team members.
You participate in solution discussions to build context for design decisions and support client conversations through the delivery team. As you gain experience across engagements and problem domains, you will strengthen your ability to complete pipeline tasks, validate data, troubleshoot common issues, and explain your work. Over time, tasks typically increase in complexity and independence as your skills develop.
Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain defined components of data pipelines and platforms supporting analytics, machine learning, and AI workloads using established designs and guidance from experienced engineers.
- Implement assigned data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration tasks using established patterns, documented requirements, and team review.
- Participate in solution design and technical discussions by asking questions, documenting decisions, and completing follow-up tasks with guidance from more senior team members.
- Write clean, maintainable, and well-documented code aligned with team standards.
- Execute assigned tests and data validation checks, document results, and assist with deployment, monitoring, and troubleshooting of production data solutions under team guidance; escalate unexpected results and issues to the appropriate team member.
- Collaborate with CSTG team members and client stakeholders by sharing task updates, documenting questions and requirements, and promptly raising blockers with the delivery team.
- Participate in code reviews, design discussions, and agile team ceremonies; incorporate feedback into your work and ask questions to strengthen your understanding of team practices.
- Follow and apply engineering standards, patterns, and best practices.
- Pursue ongoing learning and development of data engineering skills.
Required Qualifications
- Foundational hands-on experience building data pipelines, processing data, or working with data platforms through employment, internships, apprenticeships, coursework, or personal projects.
- Foundational programming skills in Python, Java, or Scala, demonstrated through scripts or projects that process, transform, or move data.
- Working knowledge of SQL, including the ability to filter, join, aggregate, and transform data in relational tables.
- Foundational understanding of data integration and pipeline concepts, with exposure to one or more technologies such as Spark, Databricks, Snowflake, Redshift, Azure Fabric, AWS Glue, or Azure Data Factory.
- Familiarity with data modeling concepts and analytics-focused data structures.
- Understanding of data quality concepts such as validation and consistency.
- Foundational familiarity with AWS and/or Azure data services, gained through hands-on projects, labs, coursework, internships, or professional experience.
- Ability to collaborate effectively within a team and communicate technical concepts clearly.
Technologies
Python, Java, Scala, SQL, Spark, Databricks, Snowflake, Redshift, Azure Fabric, AWS Glue, Azure Data Factory, AWS, Azure
Team and Collaboration
CSTG teams are described as highly collaborative and cross-functional, combining CSTG consultants with client stakeholders to address complex data challenges. The role also emphasizes working with delivery teams to communicate progress, ask questions, and raise issues clearly and professionally.
Preferred Qualifications
- AWS or Azure certifications; willingness to pursue certifications encouraged.
- Databricks or Snowflake certifications; willingness to pursue certifications encouraged.
- Experience with agentic tooling such as AWS Quick, Claude Work, Claude, Copilot, or OpenClaw.
- Exposure to CI/CD pipelines or infrastructure-as-code concepts through projects, coursework, or professional experience.
- Exposure to NoSQL databases or distributed data systems through coursework, labs, projects, or professional experience.
- Exposure to AI-powered software development tools (such as Claude Code, Cursor, Kiro, or similar).
- Exposure to consulting, client-facing work, or collaborative projects requiring communication of technical information to others.
