Data Engineer

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is building a data platform that helps teams across the organization track program impact and make decisions based on reliable information. This role will focus on creating and operating the central data warehouse and ELT pipelines, then turning raw inputs into trusted, well-documented data products for national, state, and local stakeholders.

Based in Arlington, VA with hybrid options, the Data Engineer will help expand self-service access, reduce manual reporting, and strengthen the systems that keep data accurate from source to dashboard.

Role Focus

• Build and operate NAMI’s central data warehouse and ELT pipelines from organizational sources such as micro-services, Salesforce, and an LMS.
• Reduce manual reporting by enabling on-demand access for state organizations, local affiliates, and colleagues through curated datasets and self-service reporting that replace hand-built affiliate reports.
• Own data quality by expanding automated testing, monitoring, and CI/CD as the platform grows, including end-to-end incident ownership from source to dashboard.
• Establish the standards and review practices for NAMI’s data work as the team’s first dedicated data engineer.
• Contribute to platform execution across ingestion, transformation, orchestration, and reporting.
• Develop well-modeled transformations using analytics engineering best practices.
• Deliver trusted, well-documented data products following established architectural patterns, and help improve them over time.

Requirements

• 3 to 5 years in data, analytics, or backend engineering.
• Proficiency in SQL and Python.
• Experience with version-controlled production ELT/ETL pipelines, including testing and monitoring.
• Strong understanding of data modeling (including dimensional modeling and layered architecture).
• Experience with a modern cloud data warehouse.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to non-technical colleagues.

Tools and Technologies

• SQL, Python, ELT, ETL
• CI/CD
• Salesforce, dbt, Fivetran, Airbyte, Dagster, Airflow
• Power BI, Tableau, Metabase
• LMS

Compensation and Work Setup

• Salary: USD 95,000 to 105,000 per year.
• Location: Arlington, VA (hybrid).
• Minimum experience: 3 years.
• Travel: 10 to 20%, including overnight.
• Availability: must be available during standard business hours, with core hours between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. ET.

Benefits

• Generous and comprehensive Health, Dental, and Vision Plans.
• Paid Time Off: Vacation, Personal, and Sick Leave.
• Paid Parental Leave.
• 403(b) retirement plan.
• Flexible Spending Accounts for health care, dependent care, and commuter expenses.
• Life Insurance and Disability coverage paid by NAMI.
• Flexible Work and Telework programs.
• Professional Development Reimbursement program.
• Wellness offerings to support team members.
• Employee Referral Program.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for support with personal and family problems.

Physical Requirements

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Hands-on experience with a SQL transformation framework such as dbt.
• Exposure to managed ingestion or orchestration tooling (for example, Fivetran, Airbyte, Dagster, Airflow).
• Experience with a BI tool such as Power BI, Tableau, or Metabase.
• Experience helping evaluate, adopt, or migrate to new data tooling.