Data Engineer

Associated Electric Cooperative • Springfield, MO

19d • Hybrid

About The Position

Associated Electric Cooperative is seeking a Data Engineer to join their Plant Asset Management Technology team. This role is crucial for building a new product that will serve as the digital twin of the company's power plant fleet. This product aims to integrate asset data, financials, and strategic plans into a unified platform, providing a data-driven view of plant health and performance for all levels of the organization. The Data Engineer will be involved from the ground floor, shaping the product and collaborating with business stakeholders and software engineers. The team already manages an ecosystem of power production technology systems that will integrate with this new product, offering opportunities to support and evolve existing systems while charting the future direction.

Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree in a STEM field (or equivalent experience) with a strong foundation in data engineering, system design, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Proficiency with ETL/ELT frameworks, 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 how to design data architectures that power analytics and data science operations — including data modeling, star schemas, semantic layers, and decoupled system integration patterns that scale across the enterprise and support ML/AI workloads.
• Build and evolve the high-level Databricks models that power the digital twin, combining financial, operational, and reliability data.
• Support business teams by integrating their asset-level models into fleet-wide views and ensuring they connect seamlessly into the larger platform.
• Ability to design visualizations for clarity and density, building visual dashboards, charts, and tools that expert users can quickly and capably use to see insights and perform deep analytics.
• Comfort with scripting or programming (Python or similar) to automate pipelines and integrate with downstream systems — bonus points if you can speak the language of software engineers and help guide how data integrates into the UI.
• Ability to understand business processes, see the “why” behind requirements, and shape solutions that improve how the business runs — connecting technical decisions to business value.
• Excellent communication skills, able to navigate technical and business discussions, align diverse teams, and lead initiatives without formal authority.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with best practices (e.g., Stephen Few’s work) is a big plus.
• Bonus points if you can speak the language of software engineers and help guide how data integrates into the UI.

Responsibilities

• Own the Data Design: Architect lakehouse models and pipelines that bring together telemetry from thousands of sensors and devices with work management and financial data.
• Build the data mart and semantic model that power user-driven analytics.
• Build the Digital Twin: Design the high-level models that integrate asset-level predictive models with financial, work management, and operational data to create a true fleet-wide picture of health, risk, and performance.
• Work with business teams managing asset models to ensure they can connect seamlessly into the digital twin.
• Fuse the Enterprise: Integrate financial perspectives into reliability and lifecycle models.
• Continually find ways to bring in additional operational, planning, and maintenance systems to enrich the digital twin.
• Build for the Users: Champion the people who rely on this product — from plant floor staff to executives.
• Relentlessly look for better ways to capture, model, and deliver insights, and connect them to the information they need to make faster, smarter decisions.
• Ship! Ship! Ship! Work with PM, UX, software engineers, and expert stakeholders to turn data, models, and visuals into a web app that users can’t wait to adopt.
• Champion design, value, and quality so every release makes the product stronger.

Benefits

• Top pay
• Total compensation package that reflects your experience and contributions
• Robust 401(k) program with a generous employer match
• PTO
• Paid holidays
• Premier healthcare plan that includes medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family
• Opportunities for career development

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level