Data Engineer

Join Associated Electric Cooperative’s Plant Asset Management Technology team to help build a digital twin for a fleet of power plants.

Responsibilities

• Design lakehouse models and data pipelines that combine telemetry from thousands of sensors and devices with work management and financial data.
• Build the data mart and semantic model that supports user-driven analytics.
• Create high-level models that connect asset-level predictive models with financial, work management, and operational data for a fleet-wide view of health, risk, and performance.
• Partner with business teams responsible for asset models to ensure they connect smoothly into the digital twin.
• Integrate financial perspectives into reliability and lifecycle models.
• Continuously add operational, planning, and maintenance systems to enrich the digital twin.
• Advocate for end users across the organization, from plant floor staff to executives.
• Identify better ways to capture, model, and deliver insights, and connect them to the information users need for faster, smarter decisions.
• Collaborate with PM, UX, software engineers, and expert stakeholders to convert data, models, and visuals into a web app.
• Champion design, value, and quality so each release strengthens the product.
• Work in a small, empowered agile product team with a dedicated Product Manager (direct lead), UX designer, software engineers, and analysts.
• Iterate in close partnership with plant staff and executives to ensure the web-based product works in real-world usage.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field (or equivalent experience) with strong foundations in data engineering, system design, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Strong proficiency with ETL/ELT, SQL/NoSQL, and cloud-based data platforms, especially Microsoft Azure (Storage Accounts, SQL Databases, Synapse Analytics, Data Factory, Data Lake, Delta Lake).
• Deep understanding of data architectures for analytics and data science operations, including data modeling, star schemas, semantic layers, and decoupled integration patterns that scale across the enterprise and support ML/AI workloads.
• Ability to build and evolve high-level Databricks models that power the digital twin by combining financial, operational, and reliability data.
• Experience integrating asset-level models into fleet-wide views and ensuring they connect seamlessly to the broader platform.
• Capability to design clear, dense visualizations, including dashboards, charts, and tools for expert users to explore insights and perform deep analytics.
• Familiarity with best practices (for example, Stephen Few’s work) is a plus.
• Comfort with scripting/programming (Python or similar) to automate pipelines and integrate with downstream systems.
• Bonus: ability to communicate effectively with software engineers and guide how data integrates into the UI.
• Ability to understand business processes, clarify the “why” behind requirements, and connect technical decisions to business value.
• Excellent communication skills to navigate technical and business discussions, align diverse teams, and lead initiatives without formal authority.

Technologies

• Azure
• Databricks
• Delta Lake
• Azure SQL
• Cosmos DB
• Azure Web Apps
• Python
• C#
• ETL
• ELT
• SQL
• NoSQL
• Azure Storage Accounts
• Synapse Analytics
• Azure Data Factory
• Azure Data Lake
• SQL Databases
• Data Lake
• Star schemas
• Semantic layers
• ML/AI

Benefits

• Total compensation package based on experience and contributions.
• 401(k) program with a generous employer match.
• PTO and paid holidays.
• Premier healthcare plan including medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family.

Location: Springfield, MO (onsite)