Principal Data Engineer

About Us:

At RELI Group, our work is rooted in a strong sense of purpose. We collaborate with government agencies to tackle complex challenges, enhance public health, bolster national security, and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government services. Our dedicated team of over 500 professionals combines deep expertise with a shared commitment to achieving impactful outcomes. Each solution we provide is underpinned by a team that genuinely cares about the results—whether we’re assisting data-driven decision-making, modernizing systems, or safeguarding crucial programs.

RELI Group is looking for a Principal Data Engineer to lead technical initiatives for the CMS MIDAS modernization project. Following a successful migration to Databricks, MIDAS is entering a pivotal phase of platform hardening that emphasizes standardization, architectural discipline, CI/CD reconstruction, data model unification, and automation of data transformation validation.

This position functions as the technical guide across several Scrum teams, leading a distributed group of Data Engineers while establishing robust engineering standards. The Principal Data Engineer will determine the execution of work processes rather than merely completing individual tasks.

The goal is to develop a sustainable and scalable lakehouse foundation that ensures operational resilience and facilitates future optimization, advanced analytics, and AI innovations.

Key Responsibilities:

Technical Leadership & Vision

• Establish and uphold engineering standards across all Databricks development initiatives.
• Guide the execution of a formal Bronze / Silver / Gold medallion architecture.
• Promote alignment towards a cohesive data model across various domains.
• Implement code quality metrics, naming conventions, reusable frameworks, and architectural guidelines.
• Act as the go-to expert for complex data engineering issues.

Execution Across Scrum Teams

• Supervise Data Engineers working within multiple Scrum teams.
• Offer architectural advice during backlog refinement, sprint planning, and design discussions.
• Identify inter-team dependencies and proactively address technical challenges.
• Ensure consistent Definitions of Done that incorporate thorough testing, documentation, and deployment protocols.
• Collaborate with Release Management and DevOps to align data engineering with deployment practices.

CI/CD & Governance Modernization

• Lead the reconstruction and adherence to CI/CD pipelines across lower environments (Dev/Test/Stage).
• Create testing data strategies to support validation in lower environments and automate regression testing.
• Optimize the GitHub repository structure, branching strategy, and version control governance.
• Establish automated data transformation testing frameworks.
• Enhance observability, lineage, and data quality measures.

Strategic Platform Stewardship

• Collaborate with Program Leadership to outline phased modernization roadmaps.
• Organize foundational work before diving into optimization and AI initiatives.
• Ensure that technical debt is acknowledged, appropriately prioritized, and systematically reduced.
• Advise leadership on weighing risks between speed and architectural soundness.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering with proven technical leadership abilities.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Databricks, Delta Lake, PySpark, and lakehouse architecture.
• Experience in implementing medallion architectures and cohesive data models.
• Demonstrated ability to lead or mentor data engineering teams.
• Expertise in designing or overhauling CI/CD frameworks for data pipelines.
• Strong foundational knowledge of Git governance and repository management.
• Experience collaborating across multiple Agile/Scrum teams within a scaled delivery framework.
• Capability to translate architectural vision into actionable execution standards.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in stabilizing or reorganizing complex inherited analytics platforms.
• Background supporting CMS or other federal healthcare programs.
• Familiarity with regulated environments (FISMA, ARS 5.0).
• Exposure to AI/ML enablement projects, with an understanding of requisite data engineering disciplines.

Core Technologies:

Data Engineering & Lakehouse Implementation

• Databricks, Delta Lake, Medallion architecture implementation, Large-scale distributed processing with PySpark

Programming & Data Transformation

• Python, SQL, PySpark, Data transformation frameworks

CI/CD & Environment Management

• GitHub, CI/CD pipeline design, Promotion models across environments, Automated regression testing for data pipelines

Data Quality & Validation

• Test data strategy development, Automated data validation frameworks, Schema enforcement, Data observability best practices

Cloud Platform

• AWS (S3, IAM), Cluster performance tuning

Agile Delivery & Scaled Execution

• Working across multiple Scrum teams, Definition of Done metrics

EEO Employer:

RELI Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of race, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status, religion, creed, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, genetic information, or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation.

HUBZone:

We encourage all candidates who reside in a HUBZone to apply. You can verify your eligibility by checking the SBA HUBZone Map.

Salary Range:

The annual salary range for this position is $140,000 to $170,000. Actual compensation will be based on various factors, including skills, experience, qualifications, certifications, location, and other business needs, as well as applicable employment laws. This estimate represents the typical salary range for this role and constitutes just one component of the comprehensive compensation package we offer our employees. RELI Group provides a variety of additional benefits to its workforce.