Water Level Data Manager

CSS • Boulder, CO

6d • Hybrid

About The Position

CSS is seeking a Water-level Data Manager to support NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information's (NCEI), Coasts Oceans and Geophysics (COGS) Division and Data Archive Branch. The Water-level Data Manager is responsible for the end-to-end stewardship lifecycle of coastal and deep-ocean water-level datasets (such as tide gauge observations, bottom pressure recorder data, and related marine geophysical datasets). This role is critical to the NCEI mission of preserving, documenting, and disseminating high-quality climate and oceanographic records. The successful candidate will manage raw data ingest pipelines, ensure compliance with metadata standards to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR), manage public dataset dissemination, and support infrastructure modernization-including Open Information Stewardship Service (OISS) workflows and cloud-native database transitions.

Requirements

• Proven experience in scientific or environmental data management, including archiving, validating, and managing large datasets.
• Deep understanding of geospatial metadata standards, specifically ISO 19115, ISO 19139, or FGDC CSDGM.
• Proficient programming skills in Python for automating data ingest, processing pipelines, and manipulating metadata.
• Some experience with SQL database management systems (such as PostgreSQL/PostGIS) and building or interacting with REST-based APIs.
• Demonstrated experience using Git and collaborative repositories (e.g., GitHub or GitLab) in a software development environment.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills with experience drafting technical documentation, user guides, or formal Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Must be able to pass a background investigation to obtain a federal security badge for access to government facilities and IT networks.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with coastal observing systems, tide and water-level observations, or oceanographic research variables.
• Experience working with traditional scientific self-documenting formats (e.g., netCDF, HDF5) and cloud-optimized formats (e.g., Parquet, Zarr).
• Practical familiarity with cloud service platforms, especially AWS (such as S3, EC2, Lambda) and data-migration methodologies.
• Proficient with R for data analytics and visualization.
• Familiarity with Docker or Podman container tools, and Agile/Scrum software development frameworks.
• Experience developing or maintaining orchestration services, web service pipelines, or ETL/ELT processes.

Responsibilities

• Manage the end-to-end intake pipelines for raw water-level observational data from diverse partner networks, observing platforms, and in situ sensors.
• Act as the primary technical Point-of-Contact (POC) for external data providers, scientific partners, and operational agencies regarding data ingest schedules, transfer mechanisms, and archiving anomalies.
• Examine, validate, and process incoming data streams to verify completeness, perform initial quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC), run unit conversions, and execute necessary format reformatting.
• Securely archive processed datasets in NCEI storage systems in accordance with federal data preservation guidelines.
• Author, validate, and maintain standards-compliant XML metadata records (such as ISO 19115 and ISO 19139) to describe water-level collections and products.
• Work collaboratively with science teams and data partners to establish data documenting standards, including assigning standardized global attributes within scientific formats.
• Support the implementation of controlled scientific vocabularies and taxonomies to ensure semantic interoperability and discoverability in platforms like NOAA OneStop, Geoportal, and Data.gov.
• Author and update technical Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), data specification agreements, and workflow architecture descriptions.
• Coordinate and oversee the public release of finalized coastal and deep-ocean datasets, ensuring low-latency access for stakeholders and the broader scientific community.
• Maintain Web Accessible Folders (WAFs) and open-access interoperable data catalogs that support search interfaces and map viewers.
• Respond to technical data queries from academic, commercial, and governmental users, documenting customer interactions in tracking repositories.
• Collaborate with the Data Migration Team to develop and refine operational data workflows within the Open Information Stewardship Service (OISS) framework.
• Support the "lift-and-shift" transition of legacy on-premise archiving pipelines, databases, and metadata files into cloud environments (principally AWS) to enhance scalability and cloud-native access.
• Assist in modernizing scientific data processing systems by applying automated continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices.

What This Job Offers

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