Senior Big Data Engineer

Position : Senior Big Data Engineer

Location: Hybrid in Rockville, MD (may also be open to their Virginia and NJ locations)

Duration: 6 months; likely extensions (multi-year project)

Interview: 2 rounds; Offer

Notes:

Trino Big Data platform

Happens through memory caching

Moderning the platform

Sql – from trino to athena

Provide solutions, evaluate the tech stack, move as tech moves,

Already developed an mcp agent/server – would be good if they had that experience

Experience with AWS – S3, Glue Data Catalog, Athena, etc…

Experience with Docker

Experience with Kubernetes

Experience with Jenkins

Rockville, MD location is preferred as first priority

May be open to their Tysons Corner, VA location

May be open to their Woodbridge, NJ location

May be open to their Jersey City, NJ location

Job Description:

Description

We are looking for a Senior Big Data Engineer who thinks beyond tickets and task execution. This role is for someone who questions the “why,” modernizes tech stacks, optimizes performance, and drives outcomes, not just a task executor.

What You’ll Do

• Design and build scalable data lakes and pipelines on AWS using cloud-native and automated solutions.

• Enable fast, federated analytics using Amazon Athena and Trino, with performance tuning for large-scale queries.

• Manage metadata, schemas, and discovery using AWS Glue Data Catalog.

• Implement fine-grained data access and governance using AWS Lake Formation, KMS encryption, and SSL.

• Build and operate data services on EKS (Kubernetes).

• Work with the Hadoop ecosystem (Spark, Hive, HDFS) using partitioning, bucketing, and columnar formats (Parquet, ORC).

• Troubleshoot and resolve complex big data issues across pipelines, clusters, and queries.

• Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins or similar tools.

• Monitor and observe pipelines and clusters using CloudWatch and Grafana.

• Prepare high-quality datasets for AI/ML use cases.

• Build, configure, and operate an MCP server for AI/ML integration.

• Collaborate in Scrum teams; proactively identify gaps and propose out-of-the-box, scalable solutions.

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of experience in Big Data / Data Engineering.

• Strong hands-on experience with AWS (S3, Glue Data Catalog, Lake Formation, Athena, EMR, EKS).

• Proven experience with Trino (or Presto) and optimizing query performance.

• Working knowledge of Kubernetes / EKS for data workloads.

• Strong SQL, Python, and shell scripting skills.

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and Jenkins.

• Experience building and configuring MCP server for AI/ML integration.

• Ownership mindset — problem solver, not a task executor.

Required:

• Sr. Big Data Engineer – AWS, Hadoop, Athena, Glue (Catalog), Lake Formation, Trino, EKS, AI, CI/CD & MCP Server

Good to Have

• AI/ML data pipeline exposure

• Cloud-native data modernization experience