IT Data Engineer Lead, Lead Data Engineer

University of Maryland•College Park, MD

2d•$144,560 - $173,472•Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead Data Engineer works within Enterprise Data Services (EDS), part of Enterprise Engineering in the University of Maryland’s Division of Information Technology. EDS designs, builds, and supports enterprise data platforms used for analytics, reporting, and decision-making across the University. This role helps build and drive adoption of the University’s Microsoft Fabric data platform, leads complex data initiatives, and raises engineering standards across EDS. The position leads complex, cross-team initiatives on Microsoft Fabric and translates architectural direction into proven engineering patterns. It partners with stakeholders, architects, and EDS leadership to deliver scalable, secure data solutions. The role is considered essential and may be required to work at the normal or an alternative work location during major catastrophic events, weather emergencies, or other operational emergencies. It may require evening, night, weekend, or different-shift work for extended periods. The position has an in-person component in College Park, Maryland; telework is not guaranteed.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university; qualifying additional work experience may substitute year for year for up to four years of the required education.
Seven years of professional experience supporting the operations, maintenance, and administration of IT infrastructure.
Knowledge of multiple RDBMS platforms, such as Oracle, SQL Server, or Amazon Redshift.
Expertise in at least two ETL platforms or tools, such as Informatica, AWS Glue, or Talend.
Skilled in writing SQL queries and building ETL processes.
Excellent written and oral communication skills, including adapting communication style to different audiences.
Ability to independently prioritize and execute advanced support and feature requests in an area of expertise.
Skilled in overseeing IT projects and associated team members, with a focus on executing and delivering technical initiatives.
Ability to lead presentations and training with large groups.
Proven ability to learn new technologies quickly and develop subject-matter expertise.
Ability to organize and provide significant mentorship to project team members.
Skilled in solving highly complex problems independently and collaboratively.
Demonstrated commitment to customer service and adept stakeholder management.
Ability to effectively manage workload and deliver assignments on time.
Skilled in using office productivity software such as Office 365 or Google Workspaces.
Subject-matter expertise in at least two technical areas.
Must complete employment eligibility verification within the timeframe required by federal immigration law.
Work authorization sponsorship is not available; F1 STEM OPT support is not available.

Nice To Haves

Experience migrating legacy ETL and reporting solutions to cloud platforms.
Familiarity with data governance practices such as data quality, stewardship, metadata, and lineage.
Experience with higher education data or regulated data environments, such as FERPA.
A track record of mentoring engineers or developing internal frameworks and tooling that improved team efficiency.
Microsoft certifications such as DP-700 Fabric Data Engineer, DP-600 Fabric Analytics Engineer, or PL-300 Power BI Data Analyst.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and delivery of complex Microsoft Fabric data solutions, from solution design and estimation through production handoff.
Develop reusable frameworks, templates, and patterns, including medallion layers, ingestion frameworks, CI/CD, and automated testing.
Lead modernization of legacy ETL and reporting solutions onto the Fabric platform.
Contribute to architecture decisions and the platform roadmap, considering scalability, performance, cost, and maintainability.
Establish and promote best practices for data modeling, pipeline design, version control, code review, testing, and documentation.
Partner with stakeholders, analysts, and data scientists to translate business needs into technical solutions and onboard use cases onto the platform.
Ensure solutions meet data governance, security, and compliance requirements, including FERPA, data quality, metadata, and lineage practices.
Mentor junior and mid-level engineers through code reviews, design sessions, and pair programming.
Serve as an escalation point for complex data and platform issues, leading root-cause analysis and durable fixes.
Conduct user interviews, facilitate design walkthroughs, and guide customers in developing business and technical requirements.
Oversee IT projects and team members, focusing on execution and delivery of technical initiatives.
Lead presentations and training for large groups.
Provide technical leadership and mentorship, helping bridge the gap between team management and team members.
Prioritize and deliver advanced support and feature requests, and manage workload and assignments on time.