Senior Data Engineer

Xcel Energy•Denver, CO

21h•Onsite

About The Position

The Sr. Data Engineer is responsible for leading technical aspects of IT solution delivery, cloud-based data platform engineering and data product delivery, as well as strategic planning, and operational excellence. They are responsible for managing the overall health of the technology ecosystem, and will manage and oversee design of solutions to meet business needs and support the overall IT Strategy. They provide technical guidance in partnership with Architecture and with cross-organizational input and in accordance with business unit objectives using modern data engineering practices. The Sr. Data Engineer acts as a consultant to business managers, architecture, security and analytical teams to drive cross-awareness of business needs and opportunities. They bring innovative solutions to the business line by leveraging their technical expertise in modern data tooling, automation and AI-assisted development practices. They identify and implement continuous improvement over cost, security, operation, and functionality of the solutions in their domain.

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.
Hands-on experience with Databricks (jobs/workflows, Delta tables, performance tuning, Unity Catalog, access controls).
Experience implementing Medallion architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold), feature pipelines, and data quality frameworks.
Experience building and maintaining internal data applications (Databricks apps, Lakebase, dashboards,) integrated with enterprise platforms.
Ability to translate ambiguous business needs into scalable data architectures and delivery plans.
Experience establishing engineering standards including repository structures, CI/CD, testing frameworks, documentation, and release practices.
Experience improving operability and reliability of data systems (monitoring, alerting, SLAs/SLOs).
Experience using AI-enabled development tools (e.g., Genie Code, Claude Code or similar) to enhance engineering productivity.
Databricks Data Engineering Professional Certification.
Experience working within federated or self-service data environments and enabling domain teams to publish and consume data products.

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.
Design and implement modern data pipelines and curated data products using Databricks (Delta tables, workflows and notebooks).
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.
Maintain deep expertise in data engineering and modern data architectures and Databricks capabilities.
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.