The Role
The Data Engineer will modernize data architectures and pipelines for government projects, ensuring efficient data handling and enhancing data processing capabilities while collaborating with cross-functional teams.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Nava
Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple and effective. Since 2015, federal, state, and local agencies have trusted Nava to help solve highly scrutinized technology modernization challenges.
As a client services company, we guide agencies constrained by legacy systems to a future with sharp user experiences built on secure, reliable, fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure. We bill for our time, offering our expertise and problem-solving approach to help our government partners enhance their digital products and services. People are at the heart of our work, from members of the public who rely on benefit programs to government agency staff. Through human-centered design and modern engineering best practices, we help our government partners understand user needs and deliver on their missions more effectively. This focus gives everyone at Nava the opportunity to do work that is meaningful, impactful, and deeply connected to public good.
Position summary
Nava is at the forefront of reimagining how our government serves its people, and we are looking for a Data Engineer who will help us to drive our vision forward. Working in a highly collaborative environment, you’ll create experiences that improve the lives of millions of Americans. We're looking for a Data Engineer who cares deeply about end users and is passionate about crafting simple and usable solutions.
In this role, you'll work with government stakeholders, alongside Nava's engineering, design, and product teams, to modernize data architectures "and data pipelines in critical government programs. You'll design and implement data models and databases, improve data pipelines, enhance data security, and write code to process data more efficiently and support the storage, processing, and analysis of terabytes of critical data. You will provide subject matter expertise and actively contribute to data and architecture review meetings while supporting the implementation of data integration requirements and developing the pipeline from raw data through curation layers (including data acquisition, cleaning, transformation, derivation, and aggregation) to consumable data for Data Analysts and Data Scientists.You will deploy and operate mission-critical, highly-available, and scalable systems by adopting and defining standards and best practices in data engineering. You will support our software developers, database architects, data analysts, and data scientists on data initiatives and will help ensure data delivery is optimal and consistent throughout ongoing projects. You will support the data needs of multiple teams, systems, and products in addition to creating and optimizing our government partners' data architecture to support their data initiatives and programs.
You will have a significant strategic impact and will be uniquely positioned and empowered to make a huge impact on Nava's mission to reimagine how our government serves its people. The ideal candidate will be comfortable working directly with clients in both a consulting and delivery capacity to tackle complex, enterprise cloud or on-premises software and technology projects.
What you'll do
- Work with cross-functional project teams to gather business requirements and translate to detailed technical specifications
- Work with Government partners to assist and develop data engineering applications and pipelines that will enable data services and processing capabilities, such as advanced analytics, AI/ML, and experimentation
- Design, develop, test, automate, and deploy data engineering solutions in a cloud platforms, such as AWS
- Participate in software design and code reviews
- Develop automated testing, monitoring and alerting, and CI/CD for production systems
Required skills
- Minimum of 5 years of experience
- Experience with professional software engineering practices using such tools and methodologies as Agile Software Development, Test Driven Development, CI/CD, and Source Code Management
- Experience with building ETL pipelines to ingest, process, and store data. Experience with Temporal.io is a plus
- Prior experience with Python, Java, or Scala programming for both data processing and server-side use cases
- Experience with data cleaning and data modeling while protecting sensitive data
- Proficient with building data integrations using both API and file-based protocols
- Proficient with relational databases and advanced SQL queries, particularly with Postgresql
- Experience with using data observability tools to maintain data infrastructure and data quality
- Proficient in refining high-level goals into high-impact, low-effort tasks and milestones based on human-centered design practices to prioritize options for stakeholders
- Experience with AWS services like ECS, S3, CloudWatch, and Glue
- Desire to learn new technologies and languages
- Comfortable troubleshooting complex data and systems interaction problems
- Highly organized and demonstrates critical reasoning and problem-solving skills
- Works well independently, as part of a team, and with stakeholders
- Effective oral and written communication skills to relay technical concepts clearly and concisely
Other requirements
All roles at Nava require the following:
Legal authorization to work in the United States
Ability to meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired
Work authorization that doesn’t require visa sponsorship, now or in the future
May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract
Perks working with Nava
Health coverage — comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans to support your overall health needs
Insurance coverage — Nava provides disability, life, and accidental death insurance at no cost
Time off — vacation, holidays (including Juneteenth), and floating holidays to rest and recharge
Company holidays — enjoy 12 paid federal holidays each year on top of your regular PTO
Annual bonus — when Nava meets its goals, eligible employees receive a performance-based annual bonus
Parental leave — paid time off for new parents, plus weekly meals delivered to your home
Wellness program — full platform offering physical, mental, & emotional health resources & support tools
Virtual care — see doctors online with no copay through UnitedHealthcare’s virtual visit program
Sabbatical leave — earn extended unpaid leave after continuous service for personal growth or rest
401(k) match — Nava matches 4% of your salary to support your retirement savings plan
Flexible work — remote-first environment with flexibility built around your schedule and responsibilities
Home office setup — company laptop & setup assistance provided via Staples for remote work needs
Utility support — monthly reimbursement to help offset eligible home office utility expenses
Learning opportunities — internal training programs and resources to help grow your professional skills
Development opportunities — LinkedIn Learning access & an annual allowance for courses, tuition, & certs
Referral bonus — get rewarded when you refer great people who join the Nava team
Commuter benefits — pre-tax commuter programs to support in-office travel when applicable
Supportive culture — A collaborative and remote-friendly team environment where people genuinely care
Location
We have fully remote options if you reside in one of the following states:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
*If you are not living in one of the states listed above, unfortunately, you will not be considered for a position at this time.
Stay in touch
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Please contact the recruiting team at [email protected] if you would like to request reasonable accommodation during the application or interviewing process.
We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. This role requires you to work from the contiguous United States.
Top Skills
AWS
Java
Postgres
Python
Scala
Temporal.Io
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The Company
What We Do
Nava is a public benefit corporation working to radically improve how government serves people. Formed as a team of designers and engineers in the effort to fix HealthCare.gov in 2013, Nava now works with Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs. With a strong research practice and a depth of experience scaling digital services, Nava helps more than sixty million people access critical government services.
We’re thinkers and designers of civic technology. We work holistically across engineering, research, design, and operations to proactively envision the services of a better future. We build with empathy and inclusion, and as we come from many backgrounds and countries ourselves, we seek and value different perspectives. We’d love for you to come join us.
