Senior Data Engineer

Systems Planning and Analysis supports HQ USSTRATCOM from Offutt AFB, Nebraska, delivering enterprise data engineering capabilities for C3/NC3 modernization and strategic deterrence missions. In this senior role, you will design and optimize secure, scalable data-ingestion, transformation, and integration pipelines that help move both structured and unstructured information into authoritative datasets under IL5/IL6 governance.

As a Senior Data Engineer / Integration Specialist, you will take point on integration of distributed data across legacy environments and modern cloud platforms, while providing technical mentorship to strengthen engineering execution across teams.

What you will do

• Act as the senior technical analyst for data engineering, data integration, and enterprise-scale solutions supporting Command, Control, and Communications (C3) and Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3) modernization and strategic deterrence missions.
• Lead the design, development, and optimization of secure, scalable data-ingestion, transformation, and integration pipelines for testing, experimentation, and rapid prototyping of C3 and NC3 capabilities.
• Architect real-time and batch data-flow systems that enable data exchange across legacy Department of War (DoW) Nuclear Command-and-Control (NC2) systems, sensors, platforms, and modern cloud environments.
• Integrate structured and unstructured sources into authoritative datasets while ensuring data quality, lineage, governance, and compliance with Impact Level 5 (IL5) and Impact Level 6 (IL6) security requirements.
• Develop and maintain APIs, messaging middleware, schemas, data models, and interface control documents to support system-to-system integration.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers, analysts, and integration specialists to promote consistent engineering practices.
• Partner with systems engineers, software developers, modelers, and mission stakeholders to translate operational needs into data-driven technical requirements and architectures.
• Support technology evaluations, experiments, demonstrations, and capability-prototype assessments for data-centric solutions and distributed architectures.
• Create technical documentation, data-flow diagrams, engineering artifacts, and senior-leader briefings that communicate findings and recommendations.

Qualifications

• Must be a U.S. citizen with an active Top Secret (TS) security clearance and SCI eligibility, including eligibility for Nuclear Command and Control – Extremely Sensitive Information (NC2-ESI), NATO, and Special Access Required (SAR) programs on day one. Must maintain all required clearances and program eligibilities throughout employment.
• Must be able to work full-time onsite, 5 days a week, at Offutt Air Force Base (AFB).
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field.
• 6–10 years of progressive experience in data engineering, data integration, or software development, including 3+ years supporting DoW, DoD, or Intelligence Community missions.
• Demonstrated expertise designing and implementing complex ETL/ELT pipelines and integration workflows.
• Strong proficiency in Python, Java, or comparable enterprise data engineering languages.
• Hands-on experience with streaming and distributed data frameworks such as Apache Kafka, NiFi, and Spark.
• Experience with relational databases such as PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQL Server, plus NoSQL/graph databases.
• Proven experience developing and consuming RESTful APIs and gRPC within distributed architectures.
• Experience with AWS, Azure, and GCP, hybrid environments, DevSecOps pipelines, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible), and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).

Technology areas you will use

• Python, Java
• ETL, ELT
• Apache Kafka, NiFi, Spark
• PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server
• RESTful APIs, gRPC
• AWS, Azure, GCP
• DevSecOps, CI/CD
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), Ansible
• Docker, Kubernetes

Desired qualifications

• Experience supporting USSTRATCOM, NC3, or strategic C3 modernization efforts.
• Knowledge of data-centric modernization, Digital Mission Engineering, and Authoritative Sources of Truth frameworks.
• Experience with graph databases such as Neo4j and JanusGraph for modeling complex interdependencies.
• Familiarity with data governance, data quality frameworks, and lineage tools.
• Experience working within IL5/IL6 classified environments.