Data Platform Engineer
Walker Consultants · Chicago, IL
$85,000–$120,000from the description
Jun 28, 2026
Chicago, IL
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A hands-on engineering role focused on building and maintaining internal data infrastructure at a consulting firm. Day-to-day work spans relational database design, data ingestion and transformation pipelines, Azure-hosted application environments, and Power BI reporting. The role also involves supporting CI/CD workflows and collaborating with data science staff to move prototypes into production-ready tools. Suited to early-career engineers with a background spanning SQL, backend development, and cloud platforms.
Junior level · 1+ years · Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI · 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 20 people in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (database architects). range 5–25
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 $147,490 (middle half $125,240–$168,130). 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 (8)
SOC classification is a genuine toss-up: the role spans data pipeline/schema design (15-1243 Database Architects) and backend application development (15-1252 Software Developers) roughly equally. The title 'Data Platform Engineer' and the emphasis on schema design, data pipelines, and cloud-hosted databases tipped the primary choice to 15-1243, but 15-1252 is a strong runner-up given the Node.js/Python backend service work.
The 1–5 year experience window, explicit counting of internships/co-ops, and framing as a role to 'grow into' responsibilities support a Junior seniority band despite the breadth of the stack. The title carries no level word, so advertised seniority is Unspecified.
Node.js and Python are listed together with 'and/or' in the requirements section; Node.js is named first and Python is captured as an alternative on that single skill.
Azure is listed as a required cloud platform ('preferably Microsoft Azure') — the substitution qualifier 'preferably' appears within the required section, so it is treated as a hard gate with common cloud alternatives noted.
Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, Databricks, and Azure Synapse are explicitly called out as 'a plus' in the responsibilities narrative, so they are grouped as a single preferred skill with alternatives.
CI/CD and GitHub Actions appear in both the responsibilities narrative and the Nice-to-Haves section; they are marked preferred accordingly.
The role is hybrid (3–4 days in-office at the Chicago address), so remote is false.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Azure Static Web Apps.
Read the full posting
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