Job Title: Senior Data Engineer
Reports To: VP Data Science

As a Senior Data Engineer at Ascent, you will build and evolve the AWS-based data infrastructure that powers our Machine Learning platforms as well as our Business Intelligence function. 

You will thrive at Ascent if you are a leader who enjoys taking initiative on a daily basis both to self-direct and lead others to create the best outcomes for our customers. You love working collaboratively and empathetically with your teammates. You are committed to mentorship and lifelong learning, and you desire autonomy and full ownership of your work.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement data models, data storage layers, pipelines, and associated services that support our machine learning and business intelligence activities
• Work with non-standard data scenarios including large amounts of text data, graph data structures, and event-driven data
• Prioritize readable, maintainable, evolvable, resilient code using robust testing, Infrastructure-as-Code, containerization, modern CI/CD tools, and security best practices
• Use creativity and independent thinking to solve hard technical problems
• Proactively communicate clearly and effectively with technical and non-technical colleagues about our data engineering projects
• Work closely with data scientists, machine learning engineers, and business intelligence analysts to understand their needs and processes
• Work closely with our whole technology team to successfully maintain our data platform alongside the broader technology stack
• Implement strong and consistent internal technical conventions and documentation
• Debug and resolve technical issues as they arise, and regularly report on data system health

Minimum skills and experience

• 5+ years building and maintaining back-end data services in production, preferably using container-based architectures
• Experience using AWS tools and services
• Experience with relational databases, data pipelines, data warehouses, and data lakes
• Proficient in SQL, *nix CLI tools (grep/sed/awk/BASH, etc), and Python
• Experience deploying and maintaining code using git-based tools and operating in a continuous deployment/integration environment
• Experience writing thorough tests and documentation for maintainable code-bases
• Experience maintaining infrastructure using containerization (e.g. Docker) and Infrastructure-as-Code frameworks (e.g. Terraform)
• Ability to architect and design creative technical solutions given a set of business requirements using a strong understanding of modern data architectures
• Ability to collaborate proactively on small teams and lead workstreams when needed
• Ability to communicate technical ideas to non-technical colleagues

Bonus points for experience with:

• Building and maintaining data pipelines that support machine learning models in a production environment
• Serverless architectures on AWS
• Graph data structure (e.g. Neo4J)
• Container management solutions like Kubernetes
• Storing and manipulating large amounts of text data and text transformations

Benefits

Ascent employees enjoy many benefits and perks, including:

• Competitive compensation
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance; premiums paid 95% for the individual 
• Medical premiums paid 50% for covered dependents
• Medical HSA/FSAs
• Life insurance 
• 401K 
• Disability benefits
• Commuter benefits
• Dependent Care FSA 
• Flexible PTO
• Professional development stipend
• Charitable matching gift program
• The opportunity to work with smart people on challenging problems!

Who We Are

Ascent is a Chicago-based startup that closed its Series B funding round of $19.3M in Fall 2019. Founded five years ago, the team has since grown to 40+ full time employees, led and supported by an executive team and board of directors with extensive experience in technology, regulatory compliance, sales and business operations. Ascent serves global financial institutions such as ING and CommBank, and is also working directly with regulators around the world in order to continually improve and advance our product.

A first mover in building proprietary RegulationAI™, Ascent delivers market leading regulatory knowledge as a groundbreaking new way for financial firms to manage compliance. It is our mission to help our customers protect their business from regulatory and reputational risk while reducing their overall cost to comply. 

We prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion and believe strongly that a team with different backgrounds and perspectives produces better results. Together, we are solving a $64 billion global problem in regulatory compliance. Watch this video to learn more about what we do.

Ascent is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
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