Data Engineer III

Title: Data Engineering III
Location: Houston, TX 77002 (ONSITE) - Onsite interview required
Duration: Contract to Hire 
Work Requirements: , Holders or Authorized to Work in the U.S.

Job Description
We are seeking a Senior Data Engineer (Level 3) to design, build, and optimize large-scale, high-reliability data pipelines and lakehouse architectures. The ideal candidate combines deep data engineering expertise with strong software engineering fundamentals to deliver modular, scalable, and testable data systems. This role involves leading core architectural decisions and end-to-end patterns across ingestion, transformation, data modeling, and delivery, including partitioning strategies and partition key design for high-performance analytics.
Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain ELT pipelines across ingestion, transformation, modeling, and delivery layers (bronze → silver → gold).
• Implement incremental loads, change-data-capture (CDC), merge/upsert, and idempotent pipeline patterns to ensure reliability and repeatability.
• Define and apply data architectural patterns (e.g., layered lakehouse, domain-oriented datasets, and semantic models) aligned to business objectives.
• Engineer physical data designs including partitioning strategies, partition key selection, clustering/micro-partitioning, and compaction for performance and cost efficiency.
• Develop curated datasets and data marts that enable analytics and self-service BI.
• Implement data quality, observability, and lineage (validations, profiling, SLAs, monitoring, and alerting).
• Optimize performance on cloud data platforms (e.g., Snowflake tasks/streams, compute sizing, query optimization).
• Design and manage Lakehouse table formats (e.g., Apache Iceberg or Delta) on object storage including schema evolution and maintenance.
• Collaborate with Data Architects, Analytics Engineering, and business stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable data solutions.
• Mentor junior engineers, lead design reviews, and contribute to engineering standards and reusable frameworks.
• Automate and optimize the data lifecycle using CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code; apply DevOps principles to data pipelines.

• 7–10+ years of experience in Data Engineering or closely related Software Engineering roles with a data focus.
• Expert-level SQL development and data analysis skills, including advanced query optimization and debugging.
• Strong Python engineering skills and familiarity with software design principles and patterns (e.g., SOLID), unit testing, refactoring, and version control.
• Hands-on experience building ELT/ETL pipelines and orchestration with tools such as Astronomer/Airflow; proficiency with GIT and CI/CD.
• Deep understanding of core data engineering patterns: ingestion, transformation, modeling (dimensional/SCDs), and delivery.
• Proven experience with database physical design including partitioning and effective partition key selection; exposure to clustering and micro-partitioning on MPP/cloud data platforms.
• Experience implementing data quality frameworks, observability/monitoring, and robust operational SLAs.
• Experience with Lakehouse table formats (Apache Iceberg/Delta/Hudi) and columnar storage (Parquet) on object storage (e.g., AWS S3).
• Strong communication skills with the ability to present complex technical concepts to both technical and business stakeholders.

• Experience optimizing Snowflake workloads (compute sizing, tasks/streams, clustering, micro-partitioning).
• Experience with DBT, Data Build Tool, or similar for transformation and testing.
• Experience with event streaming (Kafka/Kinesis/Flink) and API-based data integration.
• Experience with data catalog, governance, and lineage platforms.
• Domain experience in Oil & Gas midstream operations or industrial IoT/time-series data.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related field; advanced degree a plus.

Our benefits package includes: 

• Comprehensive medical benefits
• Competitive pay
• 401(k) retirement plan
• …and much more!

About INSPYR Solutions

Technology is our focus and quality is our commitment. As a national expert in delivering flexible technology and talent solutions, we strategically align industry and technical expertise with our clients' business objectives and cultural needs. Our solutions are tailored to each client and include a wide variety of professional services, project, and talent solutions. By always striving for excellence and focusing on the human aspect of our business, we work seamlessly with our talent and clients to match the right solutions to the right opportunities. Learn more about us at inspyrsolutions.com.

INSPYR Solutions provides Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, INSPYR Solutions complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities.