Data Engineer - Databricks at Steampunk
McLean, VA
$125,000–$160,000from the description
Jul 13, 2026
McLean, VA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A data engineering role focused on building and migrating enterprise data platforms and pipelines in Databricks for federal government clients. Day-to-day work involves architecting Data Lakehouse solutions, optimizing ETL workflows, and working across AWS cloud services using SQL and PySpark. Suited to engineers with hands-on Databricks experience who are comfortable operating within Agile and DevSecOps delivery environments.
Mid level · 2+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 160 people in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (database architects). range 120–260
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $166,452 (middle half $130,866–$200,954). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (5)
The role is classified as a data pipeline/architecture role (15-1243) rather than general software development (15-1252) because the primary focus is building enterprise data platforms, ETL pipelines, and data lakehouse architecture in Databricks. However, the boundary is close — the role also involves CI/CD and SDLC practices common to software engineering.
The clearance requirement is 'Public Trust' (a federal suitability determination), not a formal US security clearance level. The clearance requirement field is set to None accordingly.
The JD states '2-4 years' of both general industry experience and direct Data Engineering experience. The lower bound (2) is used for the overall years minimum. Despite the 'seasoned' framing and lead/architect responsibilities, the 2-4 year range anchors this at Mid-level.
AWS is listed as the preferred cloud platform with Azure/GCP as explicit alternatives; this is reflected in the alternatives array. Similarly, T-SQL is preferred with pgSQL/MySQL as alternatives.
Data cataloging tools (Informatica EDC, Unity Catalog, Collibra, Alation, Purview, DataZone) are explicitly called out as 'a plus' in the JD and are marked preferred.
Read the full posting
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