Data Engineer

Job Requisition:

JR101286 Data Engineer (Open)

Job Posting Title:

Data Engineer

Department:

CC00398 WM001 | WMUO | Computing Support

Job Family:

Staff - Data & Business Intelligence

Worker Sub-Type:

Regular (benefited)

Job Requisition Primary Location:

Remote Work - Virginia

Primary Job Posting Location:

William & Mary

Job Description Summary:

The Data Engineer is a junior level role that helps build and maintain the data pipelines that power William and Mary’s analytics ecosystem. Working alongside senior data architects, data scientists, and analysts, the role integrates data from enterprise systems and external sources, ensuring it is accurate, accessible, and ready for reporting, dashboards, and advanced analytics. The role supports data quality, documentation, and governance practices, and helps monitor, troubleshoot, and improve pipeline reliability and performance. This position provides hands on experience across cloud and on premises platforms, including AWS, Microsoft Fabric, and Qlik, while contributing to the scalability, security, and ongoing support of enterprise data workflows.

Job Description:

Required Qualifications:

• Associate’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

• 1–3 years of hands-on experience in data engineering, data integration, or a related technical role, including internships, co ops, academic projects, or professional experience in data engineering, software development, analytics engineering, or a related area.

• Proficiency in Python for data processing, automation, and scripting.

• Proficiency in building ELT pipelines, including scheduling, incremental loads, and error handling.

• Proficiency with SQL based transformation.

• Familiarity with data warehousing or data lake concepts, including curated datasets, dimensional modeling basics, and common file formats such as Parquet and CSV.

• Ability to troubleshoot pipeline failures, analyze root causes, and communicate clearly with technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively as part of a collaborative, cross-functional team.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or related discipline.

• Exposure to orchestration tools such as Apache Airflow.

• Exposure to AWS, Microsoft Fabric, and Qlik architecture.

• Exposure to metadata management and data catalogs.

• Familiarity with container concepts such Docker.

• Exposure to supporting analytics or machine learning efforts by helping prepare curated, reliable datasets.

• Understanding of basic data governance and security concepts, including identity and access management and least privilege access.

Certifications (Preferred, not required)

• AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate

• Microsoft Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate (DP-600)

• PCAP Python Certification

• HashiCorp Terraform Associate

• Docker Certified Associate

• Apache Airflow Fundamentals

Conditions of Employment:

• This position is subject to additional hours that extend beyond the typical work week, including weekends and holidays, in order to meet the business needs of the operation.

• Information Security: This position requires administrative access to the university’s information systems and/or sensitive university data. The incumbent is expected to be aware of and adhere to the information security policies of the university as well as all applicable federal, state, and local laws, follow information security best practices applicable to their job, and or pursue information security training and awareness opportunities when possible.

Job Duties:

Data Pipeline Development and Support:

• Collaborate with data architects, data scientists, and analysts to understand requirements and translate them into implementable data pipelines and curated datasets.

• Build and maintain data ingestion and transformation workflows using approved tools and standards.

• Integrate data from enterprise systems and external sources using APIs, files, and batch ingestion patterns.

• Develop and maintain curated datasets that support reporting, dashboards, and advanced analytics.

• Create and maintain clear documentation for pipelines, datasets, refresh schedules, data definitions, and known limitations.

Data Quality, Reliability, and Operations:

• Implement basic data quality checks and reconciliation processes to improve accuracy and trust in delivered data products.

• Monitor pipelines and data refreshes, respond to failures, and escalate issues appropriately while contributing to root cause analysis and corrective actions.

• Support performance improvements through best practices such as partitioning, indexing, and efficient query patterns, with guidance from senior engineers.

• Follow security and governance practices by using approved access controls, handling sensitive data appropriately, and supporting audit and documentation needs.

• Contribute to continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to automate manual steps, improve monitoring, and strengthen reliability and maintainability.

Posting Range: $70,000-$85,000 commensurate with experience

Additional Job Description:

Responsibilities range from working independently on multiple complex projects to serving as a technical consultant or a leader of projects, typically with deadlines and heavy workloads.
Applies broad range of knowledge and expertise of principles, practices and procedures of particular function to the completion of difficult and complex assignments.
May provide consultation and advice on major implementation ensuring services are not compromised and provide technical leadership on integration of various related systems.
The highest level positions in this role serve as a resource to others in the resolution of complex problems and issues.

Job Profile:

JP0708 - Senior Data Analyst - Exempt - Salary - S12

Qualifications:

AS - Computer and Information Science, AS - Computer Engineering, AS - Information Technology, BS - Computer and Information Science, BS - Computer and Information Science, BS - Computer Engineering, Design, develop, and maintain scalable data pipelines and ETL processes for ingesting, transforming, and delivering structured and unstructured data.

Build and optimize data architectures (data warehouses, data lakes, and lakehouses) to support analytics, reporting, and advanced use cases.

Collaborate with data analysts, data scientists, and business stakeholders to understand requirements and translate them into technical solutions.

Ensure data quality, reliability, and accuracy by implementing validation, monitoring, and error-handling frameworks.

Optimize data storage, query performance, and system scalability using best practices in partitioning, indexing, and caching.

Integrate data from multiple internal and external sources using APIs, streaming platforms, and batch ingestion.

Implement and maintain data security, access controls, and compliance with data governance standards.

Develop and maintain metadata, data catalogs, and documentation to improve data discoverability and transparency.

Automate workflows using orchestration tools (e.g., Airflow, Fabric Data Pipelines, etc.).

Collaborate with DevOps teams to deploy and manage infrastructure-as-code solutions for data platforms.

Support machine learning and advanced analytics initiatives by preparing curated, reliable datasets.

Monitor and troubleshoot data pipeline issues, ensuring high availability and minimal downtime.

Continuously evaluate and adopt new technologies, tools, and practices to improve data engineering capabilities.

Compensation Grade:

S12

Recruiting Start Date:

2026-01-22

Review Date:

2026-01-23

Position Restrictions:

EEO is the Law.  Applicants can learn more about William & Mary’s status as an equal opportunity employer by viewing the "Know Your Rights" poster published by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. https://www.eeoc.gov/know-your-rights-workplace-discrimination-illegal

 

Background Check: William & Mary is committed to providing a safe campus community. W&M conducts background investigations for applicants being considered for employment. Background investigations include reference checks, a criminal history record check, and when appropriate, a financial (credit) report or driving history check. 

 

Remote Work Disclaimer: Remote work eligibility is not guaranteed and is subject to approval. Employee eligibility depends on the likelihood of the employee succeeding in a remote work arrangement and the supervisor’s ability to manage remote workers. Departments and/or Human Resources may amend, alter, change, delete, or modify eligibility.