Enterprise Data Lake Tech Lead - Dallas, TX (Hybrid) - 12 Months Contract - Direct Client

5+ years with Apache Kafka (streaming architecture, Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, stream processing) 

3+ years with Databricks (Delta Lake, Apache Spark optimization, Unity Catalog, cluster management) 

Deep understanding of data lake architecture patterns (Bronze/Silver/Gold, medallion architecture) 

3+ years with DataHub or similar metadata management platforms (Alation, Collibra, Apache Atlas) 

Deep experience building and operating enterprise data catalog systems 

Expertise in automated metadata extraction, lineage tracking, and impact analysis 

Experience with data quality frameworks and metadata-driven data operations 

Knowledge of data governance policies, data classification, and compliance automation 

Understanding of data discovery, access control, and self-service analytics enablement 

5+ years with enterprise RDBMS platforms including: 

SQL Server (T-SQL, SSIS, SSRS, replication, Always On Availability Groups) 

PostgreSQL (advanced query optimization, partitioning, extensions, streaming replication) 

MySQL (replication, clustering, performance tuning) 

Strong SQL skills (complex queries, stored procedures, window functions, query optimization) 

Database design principles (normalization, indexing strategies, schema design, partitioning) 

Change Data Capture (CDC) patterns and implementation (Debezium, Azure Data Factory, AWS DMS, custom solutions) 

Database migration experience (schema migration, data migration, zero-downtime migrations) 

5+ years with Azure or AWS Cloud including: 

Azure: Data Lake Storage (Gen2), Event Hubs, AKS, Azure SQL, Key Vault, Azure AD, Monitor 

AWS: S3, MSK/Kinesis, EKS, RDS/Aurora, Secrets Manager, IAM, CloudWatch 

Cloud-native data services, networking, security, and IAM 

3+ years with Kubernetes (deployment strategies, scaling, monitoring, service mesh, Helm) 

3+ years with Terraform (modules, state management, multi-environment deployments, multi-cloud) 

Strong proficiency in any programming languages like C#, Go 

Expert-level SQL across multiple database platforms 

Experience with Python for data engineering tasks (preferred) 

Familiarity with Shell scripting (Bash) 

7+ years in data engineering, platform engineering, or database engineering roles 

3+ years in technical leadership capacity (Tech Lead, Principal Engineer) 

Proven track record of delivering large-scale data infrastructure projects 

Experience leading teams of 5-10+ engineers 

Strong architectural design and system thinking capabilities 

Experience migrating legacy RDBMS workloads to modern data lake architectures 

Demonstrated ability to balance technical excellence with business needs