About this opportunity
Talentify lists this Lead Data Engineer opportunity in mclean, Virginia. Review the employer’s description below for duties, qualifications and application requirements.
Job description
At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies – collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity. Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose — and help shape the future.
Department Summary
MITRE's Data Science and Engineering department is looking for qualified applicants to bring their advanced data engineering skills to bear on solving problems of critical national importance. MITRE's diverse work program provides opportunities to apply your expertise and creative thinking in challenging domains such as national security, intelligence, transportation, and healthcare. Employees may also participate in MITRE's internal research and development program, which provides funding for innovative applied research that addresses our sponsors' hardest problems.
Roles & Responsibilities
The successful candidate for this position is an experienced Data Engineer who combines strong foundations in computer science and software engineering with hands‑on experience designing and implementing data systems to solve mission problems. This role requires practitioners with expertise in data modeling, processing, infrastructure engineering, and operational deployment. Our organization values innovation and believes that keeping up with the latest research and technologies is essential.
Expectations for this position are as follows:
The candidate should have hands‑on experience in several of the areas specified below, however it is not required that a candidate has experience in all of these areas.
Design, build, and operate secure, scalable, and maintainable data platforms and pipelines in cloud-based and self-hosted environments.
Develop batch and streaming data-processing solutions for structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.
Create data models, schemas, interfaces, and storage architectures that support mission and analytical requirements.
Evaluate and improve data quality, lineage, governance, access controls, and secure data‑handling practices.
Translate sponsor and stakeholder needs into technical requirements and practical engineering solutions.
Diagnose complex system, performance, reliability, and data‑quality problems.
Evaluate emerging data technologies and recommend their use when they provide meaningful mission or engineering benefits.
Establish and promote software engineering practices such as automated testing, version control, code review, modular design, observability, and continuous integration.
Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
Contribute to applied research, prototypes, and technical publications, as appropriate.
Lead technical workstreams or complex projects involving multiple contributors, dependencies, risks, and stakeholders.
Mentor engineers and transfer technical knowledge across teams.
Data Engineering
Distributed Data Processing and Big Data Architectures, such as Spark, Hadoop, Ray, Dask
Data Storage and Data Lakehouse Architectures, such as RDBMS, Amazon S3, Iceberg, Delta Lake
Cloud-based Data Platforms, such as Databricks, Palantir Foundry, Microsoft Fabric, and Amazon EMR
Data Pipeline/ETL Development, Integration, and Orchestration, such as Airflow, Dagster, NiFi
Batch and Streaming Data Processing
Data Modeling, Schema Design, and Data Quality Assessment
Data Governance, Access Controls, and Secure Data Handling
Performance Optimization and Reliability Engineering
Software Development
Computer Programming and Databases – Advanced proficiency in Python and SQL required
Software Engineering Best Practices (e.g., version control, testing, modular design)
Linux-based Development Environments, Git, and Cloud Platforms
Use of Containerization and Orchestration, such as Docker and Kubernetes
Basic Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, or related field with 8 years of relevant experience.
Advanced, hands‑on proficiency with Data Engineering approaches, including distributed data processing, cloud‑based data platforms, data lakehouse architectures, ETL orchestration, data modeling, and data governance.
Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Top Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance. Per the U.S. Government's eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for a security clearance.
This position requires a minimum of 3 days per week on‑site.
Preferred Qualifications
Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, or related field with 6 years of relevant experience; PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, or related field with 3 years of relevant experience.
Active DoD Top Secret Clearance.
This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s):
None
This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s):
Top Secret
Salary compensation range and midpoint
$155,200 - $194,000 - $232,800 Annual
Work Location Type
Onsite
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.
Commitment to Non-Discrimination
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, local or international law.
MITRE intends to maintain a website that is fully accessible to all individuals. If you are unable to search or apply for jobs and would like to request a reasonable accommodation for any part of MITRE's employment process, please email for general support and for intern positions. This service is for individuals requiring reasonable accommodation requests. Please note that vendor solicitations will not receive a reply.
Benefits information may be found here.
Copyright , The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved. MITRE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. Material on this site may be copied and distributed with permission only.
#J-18808-Ljbffr
Worksite address
mclean, VA, 22107, US
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.