Data Engineer at Black Cape
Pentagon, VA
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Jul 9, 2026
Pentagon, VA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A data engineering role focused on building and maintaining ETL pipelines, managing data movement and storage, and supporting AI/ML applications for U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Community customers. Day-to-day work involves the Databricks platform, Python scripting, relational databases, and transforming data into interactive dashboards. An active TS/SCI clearance is mandatory, and the position requires working onsite in the Washington D.C. metro area most of the week.
Mid level · 3+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Senior, but the requirements read as Mid.
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
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
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).
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 (7)
The title says 'Senior Level' but the minimum experience gate is only 3+ years and the posting explicitly states they are 'considering Mid to Senior Level Data Engineers' — the actual requirements support a Mid-level classification.
Active TS/SCI clearance is an absolute hard gate; the posting repeats this requirement multiple times and explicitly states non-US citizens or those without a US government-issued clearance will not be considered.
The relational database requirement names PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite as interchangeable options ('at least ONE'); PostgreSQL is listed as the primary with the others as alternatives.
AWS appears only in narrative context ('successful deployments on JWICS, NIPR, SIPR utilizing AWS') rather than in the required or preferred skills sections, so it is listed as preferred.
Graph Databases and Data Lakes appear alongside NiFi, SQL, and NoSQL under the 'Nice to Haves' section; they are not emitted as separate skills because they name no specific product.
No compensation figures were provided in the posting.
Requires a TS/SCI clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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