Associate Senior Data Engineer, Washington DC

Associate Senior Data Engineer Job #: req37869 Organization: World Bank Sector: Information Technology Grade: GG Term Duration: 3 years 0 months Recruitment Type: Local Recruitment Location: Washington, DC,United States Required Language(s): English Preferred Language(s): Closing Date: 8/10/2026 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC

Description

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 130 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit 

ITS Vice Presidency Context:

The Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) enables the World Bank Group to achieve its mission of ending extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet by delivering transformative information and technologies to its staff working in over 150+ locations. For more information on ITS, see this video:

Unit Context:   

The ITS Data Office (ITSDO) is the central entity within the World Bank Group’s Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) department responsible for enabling data, AI, information, and knowledge capabilities across the institution. It comprises four Units focused on platforms & tools, product & service delivery, enablement and governance. The office plays a pivotal role in advancing the Bank’s digital transformation, supporting business domains with trusted data, information and AI capabilities, and fostering a culture of responsible innovation.  

The Platforms & Tools Unit is responsible for building, integrating, and continuously modernizing the foundational technology infrastructure that powers data, AI, archives, and knowledge services across the World Bank Group. The unit leads the rationalization and simplification of legacy systems, and modernization towards platforms that are scalable, secure, interoperable, and designed for self-service and adoption. The unit plays a critical role in enabling enterprise-wide transformation by delivering data environments, digitization infrastructure, and open knowledge repositories that are AI-ready and aligned with business needs.   

Duties and accountabilities: 

Data Transformation and Modeling

• Design and build dimensional and semantic data models on top of the curated data layer (Delta Lake/Unity Catalog) that translate raw data into business-ready tables

• Apply software engineering practices, including version control, modular design, and reusable macros, to data transformation code

• Own the AI-ready data layer at the enterprise for both structured and unstructured data ensuring transformations are documented as patterns/codified blueprints, tested, and repeatable

• Reduce duplication and inconsistency across data models by establishing canonical, reusable definitions for key business entities and metrics

Semantic Layer and Metrics Governance

• Define and maintain a single source of truth for enterprise metrics and business definitions, preventing divergent calculations across teams and tools

• Partner with Collibra-based governance work to ensure business metadata and technical metadata stay aligned as data moves from platform to consumption

• Establish data contracts between upstream data producers and downstream consumers, including AI agents and BI tools, to protect against silent schema or definition drift

Testing, Documentation, and Data Quality

• Implement automated data quality tests and validation checks as part of the transformation pipeline (not just at ingestion)

• Maintain living documentation of data models, lineage, and business logic so analysts, data scientists, and AI agents can self-serve with confidence

• Monitor data freshness, completeness, and accuracy of consumption-layer datasets and triage issues back to the appropriate upstream owner

Stakeholder Enablement and AI Readiness

• Work directly with business analysts, data scientists, and product teams to understand use cases and translate them into well-structured, reusable data models

• Prepare and structure datasets specifically for AI/agentic consumption, ensuring enterprise AI agents and accelerators draw from governed, high-quality data rather than ad hoc extracts

• Build or support last-mile dashboards and self-service data products where the underlying model is the primary complexity

• Act as the bridge between the Data Engineering team and business/AI consumers, reducing the load on data engineers to answer business-logic questions

Cross Cutting Analytics Standards and Interoperability

• Define and publish enterprise standards for analytical data products, including naming conventions, business identifiers, metadata requirements, documentation standards, testing criteria, and quality controls to ensure consistency and interoperability across business units.

• Embed analytics standards and governance requirements into platform capabilities through automated validation, testing, and compliance checks, ensuring adherence by design rather than through manual reviews and governance processes.

• Build and maintain shared taxonomies, reference data, business entities, and semantic relationships that connect data products across business domains and enable cross-cutting analytics, reporting, AI, and self-service use cases.

Selection Criteria

Educational Qualifications and Experience:

• Education: Typically requires a Master's degree with 8 years of experience or a Bachelors degree with a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Role Specific Experience: 7+ years of experience in Data and/or Analytical engineering at enterprise scale

Certification Requirements:  

• SAFe or other relevant Agile certifications.

• Industry-recognized certifications in Data and Analytics Engineering, particularly Databricks certifications.

Required Skills/Abilities:

• Demonstrated expertise in analytics engineering practices, including dimensional data modeling, transformation pipeline design, and semantic layer development

• Hands-on experience with dbt or comparable transformation frameworks, including testing, documentation, and CI/CD for data models

• Strong SQL skills and working proficiency in Python for data transformation and automation

• Experience working with modern lakehouse platforms (Databricks, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog) and translating curated data into consumption-ready models

• Familiarity with data governance and cataloging tools (e.g., Collibra) and the ability to align technical metadata with business definitions

• Experience defining and maintaining data contracts and metrics layers that serve both BI tools and AI/agentic consumers

• Strong business acumen and communication skills, with the ability to translate stakeholder needs into scalable, well-documented data models

• Working knowledge of BI, AI, and visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, Lakeflow designer, Agentic AI) sufficient to understand how models will be consumed downstream

• Understanding of data quality frameworks and observability practices to proactively catch issues before they reach business or AI consumers

WBG Culture Attributes:

1. Sense of urgency: Anticipate and quickly respond to the needs of internal and external stakeholders.
2. Thoughtful risk-taking: Challenge the status quo and push boundaries to achieve greater impact.
3. Empowerment and accountability: Empower yourself and others to act and hold each other accountable for results.

World Bank Group Core Competencies

The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

Learn more about working at the World Bank and IFC including our values and inspiring stories.