Staff Data Engineer - Code for America

Code for America believes government can work for the people, by the people, in the new digital age, and that government at all levels can and should work well for all people. For more than a decade, we’ve worked to show that with the mindful use of technology, we can break down barriers, meet community needs, and find real solutions.

Code for America is looking for a talented Staff Data Engineer who will lead the technical execution of our data infrastructure behind high-impact government services. In this role, you will make data reliable and usable at scale—improving how our teams collect, move, model, and analyze the data that tells us whether the services we build actually work for the people who need them most.

About the Role

Code for America’s Staff Data Engineers build and operate the infrastructure that moves data through the products we ship, between our systems and our partners’ systems, and into the analysis that drives meaningful improvements in outcomes across tax, criminal justice, and safety net delivery areas.

This role reports to a Data Science Manager and requires up to 10% travel.

Key Responsibilities

Data Infrastructure & Pipeline Engineering

• Lead cross-functional technical planning with Data Scientists, Software Engineers, and Product Managers to translate data architecture requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Create new data pipelines, data transfers, and compliance-oriented infrastructure to facilitate seamless data utilization within cloud environments.
• Contribute to best practices for dataset management and optimization, ensuring data consistency and performance.
• Implement data transformation, integration, and validation processes to support analytics and reporting needs.
• Partner with DevOps to apply deployment standards, monitoring frameworks, and operational best practices for data infrastructure.
• Lead technical investigations into data issues within the systems you own, resolving them with thorough communication and recommending process changes.
• Optimize and fine-tune data pipelines for improved speed, reliability, and efficiency.
• Generate and optimize data architecture recommendations and demonstrate the ability to implement them.
• Champion privacy, security, and data governance practices throughout the entire data lifecycle.
• Support Engineering's culture of writing by producing quality documentation and learning materials.

Technical Leadership & Enablement

• Contribute to the development of data engineering best practices and standards, reinforcing them across the team.
• Collaborate with Product Managers and cross-functional peers, adapting your approach as priorities, technology, and team needs shift.
• Mentor engineers and data scientists on data engineering best practices, pipeline design, and architectural thinking.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in data engineering or related technical fields.
• Expert-level SQL and experience with Python or R.
• Experience with Postgres and cloud-based data warehousing (e.g., BigQuery, Snowflake).
• Expertise with data orchestration tools (e.g., Dagster) for building and managing data pipelines.
• Expertise using dbt for data transformation and modeling within data warehouses.
• Experience with Metabase or similar BI tools (e.g., Tableau, PowerBI, Looker).
• Experience ensuring data pipelines are accessible to Data Scientists through notebook tools (e.g., Hex).
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and Infrastructure as Code.
• Excellent collaboration, written, and verbal communication skills in English.
• Demonstrated ability to use AI coding tools judiciously, validating and refining generated code.
• Deep commitment to Code for America's mission of making government services work well for all.

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience making government services better for public impact.
• Personal or professional experience with the social safety net or mission-relevant government services.
• Experience building and integrating AI-powered features in production systems with evaluation and monitoring.

Benefits & Perks

• Salary Range: $128,945 - $157,850 annually (offer targets vary based on location).
• Health Coverage: At least one zero-cost health insurance option for full-time employee-only coverage, plus minimum 80% coverage for dependents.
• Retirement: 401(k) with 100% employer match on the first 3%, plus additional match for 3+ years of service.
• Time Off: Open personal time off, 14+ paid holidays, org-wide closure from Christmas to New Year's Day, paid sick time (up to 96 hours annually), 17 weeks paid parental leave, and a 3-week sabbatical after 5 years.
• Remote Setup: Provided laptop, one-time $700 remote setup support ($200 stipend + up to $500 reimbursement), and $50/month cell phone/internet reimbursement.
• Professional Development: $500 annual stipend towards professional development with rollover options.