Lead Data Solution and AI Engineer

Gallagher • Rolling Meadows, Illinois

2d

About The Position

At Gallagher Bassett, the Lead Data Solution and AI Engineer provides guidance, leadership, and execution of data integration solutions for business intelligence and AI initiatives. The role participates in multiple technically complex, mission-critical, or high-profile data projects and makes sound data architecture recommendations.

The engineer designs and maintains scalable data pipelines and supports analytics, reporting, and AI/ML workloads across Azure and on-premises environments. The role also develops AI-powered capabilities, improves data delivery and operational processes, applies security and governance practices, and provides technical leadership to junior developers and project teams.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive experience as a Data Solutions and AI Engineer using current and emerging data technologies and approaches, including 7+ years on the Microsoft platform.
• 7+ years designing and building large applications using SQL Server and related database technologies.
• 7+ years of experience with physical and cloud database design.
• 7+ years of experience migrating code, database changes, data, and menus through the software development lifecycle.
• 2+ years of experience designing, developing, and deploying AI/ML-powered applications and cloud data solutions.
• 2+ years of experience with NLP, entity resolution algorithms, Graph RAG, ontology, and distributed systems.
• 4+ years of experience with CI/CD pipelines and deployment tools.
• 2+ years of experience developing search, retrieval, recommendation, or knowledge management solutions.
• 2+ years of experience with microservices, event-driven architectures, and containerized applications.
• 3+ years of experience working with C#, .NET, REST APIs, and modern application architecture to support integration and solution development.
• 5+ years of strong understanding of database and application performance tuning.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Typically requires a university degree and a minimum of 7 years of prior relevant experience, or equivalent experience.
• Strong communication and active-listening skills, including communication with management, development teams, vendors, systems administrators, and other service providers.
• Deep technical understanding of data and a passion for technology.
• Ability to lead a project team, communicate a technology vision and its value, and create detailed estimates for planned technology activities.
• A disciplined approach to work and professional craft.
• Ability to stay current with emerging data engineering and AI technologies.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Snowflake and Microsoft Fabric.
• SQL, Python, Azure Data Factory, Databricks, and Spark experience.
• Data transformation experience.
• Cloud data experience.
• Distributed data warehouse knowledge.
• Data lakes experience.
• Communication and stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain scalable ETL/ELT pipelines using Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, Synapse Analytics, and Azure SQL for analytics, reporting, and AI/ML workloads.
• Develop data ingestion, transformation, validation, and loading workflows using APIs, databases, Azure Blob Storage, ADLS Gen2, third-party systems, and on-premises SQL databases.
• Support on-premises SQL Server integration, including extraction, synchronization, replication, and performance tuning.
• Write and optimize T-SQL queries, stored procedures, views, and functions for data processing, reporting, and analytics.
• Support data models, data marts, and feature stores for analytics and machine learning use cases.
• Develop, train, fine-tune, deploy, and monitor AI/ML models using structured and unstructured data, including model versioning, performance tracking, and retraining.
• Develop AI-powered capabilities using large language models and AI services.
• Implement intelligent search, knowledge retrieval, and automation solutions.
• Troubleshoot ETL failures, data latency issues, and production incidents across Azure and on-premises environments.
• Identify and implement process improvements that automate manual activities and improve data delivery.
• Improve the performance, scalability, reliability, and maintainability of data engineering solutions.
• Apply Azure security best practices, including RBAC, Managed Identities, Azure Key Vault, and private networking.
• Ensure data quality, consistency, lineage, and governance through validation, reconciliation, and exception-handling processes.
• Provide technical guidance and leadership to junior developers.
• Provide data architecture recommendations, project team leadership, technology vision, and detailed estimates.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation.
• Comprehensive benefits programs designed to support well-being.
• Career development opportunities and ongoing learning.
• Collaborative, people-first culture with accessible leadership.
• Opportunity to do meaningful work with global reach and local impact.

What This Job Offers

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