Senior Data Applications Engineer

Xcel Energy•Minneapolis, MN

2d•$112,200 - $159,400•Onsite

About The Position

The Sr. Data Applications Engineer will be a senior hands-on engineer on the Xcel Vision Suite (XVS) Data & Applications Engineering team, reporting to the Manager of Data & Applications Engineering. This role focuses on building internal data-driven applications, workflows, and analytics products that sit on top of XVS data pipelines and modeling outputs. This position works closely with Product, Data Science, Enterprise IT, and external consultants to turn planning workflows, model outputs, and complex datasets into usable tools for planners and engineers. The role emphasizes building lightweight applications, dashboards, and workflows (e.g., data input, comparison tools, and decision-support interfaces) while ensuring they are maintainable, well-documented, and aligned with enterprise standards. The Sr. Data Applications Engineer will help establish and follow engineering practices for application design, documentation, deployment, and knowledge transfer, and contribute to how the team delivers and maintains XVS tools over time. The role requires strong technical judgment, comfort working in ambiguity, and the ability to translate loosely defined needs into practical, user-facing solutions. It also includes applying modern engineering practices, including AI-assisted development, to improve delivery speed and quality.

Requirements

Ten years of related functional experience
Bachelor's degree in Technology, Science, Business or related field, or 4 years of experience equivalent to the position.
Excellent communication skills, effective with varying organizational levels and skill set, and able to translate between technical and non-technical concepts.
Excellent Relationship Management and collaboration skills, with a track record of working as one team cross-organizationally to drive innovation and business results.
Expertise managing the lifecycle of technical solutions.
Deep Subject Matter Expertise within the respective system domain products, platforms, processes and architecture.
Broad and deep knowledge of technology architecture, infrastructure, network, security and software principles and models.
Experience working in partnership with internal and external vendors.
Excellent analytical, problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
Extensive knowledge of future technology trends within area of expertise.
Demonstrated leadership on technical aspects of large-scale projects.
Experience coaching other developers in system deployment or operational troubleshooting.
Experience with delivery methodologies (Waterfall, Agile, Scrum) and operational models (ITIL)
Experience and understanding of core IT Service Management functions, such as Change Management and Incident Management.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field.
Experience building internal data applications, workflow tools, or engineering/analytics utilities (e.g., file processing tools, comparison tools, or decision-support applications).
Hands-on experience working with Databricks, SQL, Python, and related tools to support application development on top of data pipelines and curated datasets.
Experience building dashboards, semantic layers, or reporting products (e.g., Power BI) that support engineering or business workflows.
Experience translating complex or messy data (e.g., model outputs, vendor data, or legacy systems) into usable tools, workflows, or applications for end users.
Ability to take ambiguous user needs and turn them into practical user-facing applications and clear delivery plans.
Experience establishing or following engineering practices for application development, including repository structure, version control, testing, documentation, and release processes.
Experience working with or integrating vendor/consultant-built solutions and ensuring effective documentation and knowledge transfer for long-term internal ownership.
Experience using AI-enabled development tools (e.g., Genie Code, Claude Code or similar) to enhance engineering productivity.

Responsibilities

Lead and support solution lifecycle technical activities.
Ensure solutions are designed for great user experience and operational performance.
Lead design, ensuring Enterprise Architecture, Security, Operations and Compliance aspects are continuously integrated into solutions.
Provide input to cost and schedule estimation.
Responsible for overall integrity of system design and operation.
Oversee vendor activities.
Conduct peer reviews and approve system changes and technical solution design.
Coach and mentor less experience team members.
Partner cross-organizationally to drive minimal costs on optimal solutions.
Provide in-depth technical information to stakeholders as needed.
Innovate through usage of industry emerging capabilities and evolving customer needs.
Provide input to strategic roadmap and technical dependencies.
Continuously stay current on, and apply, technical industry knowledge pertaining to the respective domain.
Review solution performance, and continually assess health of systems.
Track and drive awareness to operational and technical debt risks.
Provide escalated support to incident and problem management.
Utilize analytics to improve availability, reliability, efficiency and capacity.
Oversee vendor activities.