As a Data Engineer, you will improve government data architectures and pipelines, optimize data processing, and collaborate with teams to enhance user experience.
About Nava
Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple and effective. Since 2013, federal, state, and local agencies have trusted Nava to help solve highly scrutinized technology modernization challenges.
As a client services company, we guide agencies constrained by legacy systems to a future with sharp user experiences built on secure, reliable, fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure. We bill for our time, offering our expertise and problem-solving approach to help our government partners enhance their digital products and services.
People are at the heart of our work, from members of the public who rely on benefit programs to government agency staff. Through human-centered design and modern engineering best practices, we help our government partners better understand user needs and deliver on their missions more effectively. This focus gives everyone at Nava the opportunity to do work that is meaningful, impactful, and deeply connected to public good.
Position Summary
Nava is at the forefront of reimagining how our government serves its people, and we are looking for a Data Engineer who will help us to drive our vision forward. Working in a highly-collaborative environment, you’ll create experiences that improve the lives of millions of Americans. We're looking for a Data Engineer who cares deeply about end users and is passionate about crafting simple and usable solutions.
In this role, you'll work with government stakeholders, alongside Nava's engineering, design and product teams, to modernize data architectures and data pipelines in critical government programs. You'll design and implement data models and databases, improve data pipelines, enhance data security, and write code to process data more efficiently and support storage, processing, and analysis of terabytes of critical data. You will provide subject matter expertise and actively contribute in data and architecture review meetings, while supporting the implementation of data integration requirements and developing the pipeline from raw data through curation layers (including data acquisition, cleaning, transformation, derivation, and aggregation) to consumable data for Data Analysts and Data Scientists.
You will deploy and operate mission-critical, highly-available, and scalable systems by adopting and defining standards and best practices in data engineering. You will support our software developers and Infrastructure Engineers on data initiatives and will help ensure data delivery is optimal and consistent throughout ongoing projects. You will support the data needs of multiple teams, systems, and products in addition to creating and optimizing our government partners' data architecture to support their data initiatives and programs.
You will have a significant strategic impact and will be uniquely positioned and empowered to make a huge impact on Nava's mission to reimagine how our government serves its people. The ideal candidate will be comfortable working directly with clients in both a consulting and delivery capacity to tackle complex, enterprise cloud, or on-premises software and technology projects. You'll have an innate desire to learn new technologies and languages as well as be a problem solver who likes and creative thinker. You're also highly organized and works well independently, as part of a team, and with stakeholders. Our ideal candidate will also be an effective oral and written communicator with a strong ability to relay technical concepts clearly and concisely to a wide audience with various levels of technical knowledge and awareness.
What you’ll do
- Document, improve, and maintain data strategies and artifacts, including logical and physical data models, data dictionary, data architecture roadmap, and data security policies, using industry best practices and adhering to federal standards, along with operational runbook procedures
- Collect data access patterns and review current data models to optimize designs for customer use cases
- Standardize data ingestion and processing pipelines to scale with increasing utilization
- Audit and reverse-engineer business rules in legacy systems, and build data connectors for integrating them into a data and analytics platform
- Implement large-scale data ecosystems within cloud-based platforms that include data management and data governance of structured and unstructured data
- Leverage and enhance automation to speed development and improve reliability and performance
- Work with cross-functional project teams to gather business requirements and translate to detailed technical specifications
- Work with Government partners to assist and develop data engineering applications and pipelines that will enable data services and processing capabilities
- Design, develop, test, automate, and deploy data engineering solutions in a cloud platforms, such as Azure
- Participate in software design and code reviews.
- Develop automated testing, monitoring and alerting, and CI/CD for production systems
- Maintain security and privacy standards in all aspects of the data pipeline
Required skills
- 7+ years data engineering experience
- 3+ years of experience in cloud data architecture (AWS preferred) and big data technologies
- Experience with Kimball's Dimensional modeling methodology
- Experience with building ETL/ELT pipelines in Python or Java
- Experience with Databricks and date lakehouse architecture
- Proficient with relational databases and advanced SQL queries
- Experience with data cleaning and data modeling while protecting sensitive data
- Proficient with building data integrations using both API and file-based protocols
- Proficient in refining high-level goals into high-impact, low-effort tasks and milestones based on human-centered design practices to prioritize options for stakeholders
- Tenacity to dive into problems and iterate in working code
- Equal parts systems thinker and advocate for users
- Highly resourceful, reliable, and detail-oriented
- Ability to think strategically around trade-offs and short-term vs. long-term benefits
- An adaptive, empathetic, collaborative, and positive mindset
- Excellent written and real-time communication, technical and otherwise
Other requirements
All roles at Nava require the following:
Must be legally authorized to work in the United States.
Must meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired.
Work authorization that doesn’t require visa sponsorship, now or in the future.
May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract.
Perks working with Nava
Health coverage – Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans to support your overall health needs.
Time off – Vacation, holidays (including Juneteenth), and floating days to rest and recharge.
Company holidays- Enjoy 12 paid federal holidays each year on top of your regular PTO.
Annual bonus – When Nava meets goals, eligible employees receive a performance-based annual bonus.
Parental leave – Paid time off for new parents, plus weekly meals delivered to your home.
Wellness program – Full platform offering physical, mental, & emotional health resources & support tools.
Virtual care – See doctors online with no copay through UnitedHealthcare’s virtual visit program.
Sabbatical leave – Earn extended paid leave after continuous service for personal growth or rest.
401(k) match – Nava matches 4% of your salary to support your retirement savings plan.
Flexible work – Remote-first environment with flexibility built around your schedule and responsibilities.
Home office setup – Company laptop & setup assistance provided via Staples for remote work needs.
Utility support – Monthly reimbursement to help offset eligible home office utility expenses.
Learning opportunities – Internal training programs and resources to help grow your professional skills.
Development budget – Annual allowance for courses, tuition, certifications, & LinkedIn Learning access.
Referral bonus – Get rewarded when you refer great people who join the Nava team.
Commuter benefits – Pre-tax commuter programs to support in-office travel when applicable.
Insurance coverage – Nava provides disability, life, and accidental death insurance at no cost.
Supportive culture – A collaborative and remote-friendly team environment where people genuinely care.
Location
We have fully remote options if you reside in one of the following states:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.
*If you are not living in one of the states listed above, unfortunately, you will not be considered for a position at this time. Additionally, if employed with Nava, you must be based in the U.S. and cannot work from outside the country.
Stay in touch
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Please contact the recruiting team at [email protected] if you would like to request reasonable accommodation during the application or interviewing process.
We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. This role requires you to work from the contiguous United States.
Top Skills
AWS
Databricks
Java
Python
SQL
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