Staff Data Engineer

This role is not eligible for sponsorship AND is four days onsite hybrid at our N. Scottsdale office Choice Hotels is looking for a Staff Data Engineer in its SkyTouch Technology division, responsible for driving enterprise‑wide data architectural maturity and influencing cross‑team initiatives. Responsibilities Define and evolve the long‑term data architecture and technical standards across teams and platforms. Design and oversee highly scalable, resilient, and cost‑efficient data systems using cloud technologies such as Amazon Web Services. Make principled trade‑offs between AWS‑managed services and open technologies (e.g., Spark, Flink, Iceberg) to ensure long‑term scalability and maintainability. Lead complex, cross‑domain data initiatives that span multiple teams, systems, and business functions. Serve as a technical authority and escalation point for complex data engineering challenges and architectural decisions. Establish best practices for data quality, reliability, observability, security, and governance across the organization. Drive alignment on data modeling, batch and real‑time integration patterns, and platform usage to reduce duplication and technical debt. Partner with engineering, analytics, and business leaders to translate strategic goals into technical data solutions. Mentor senior engineers and influence technical growth through design reviews, architectural forums, and technical guidance. Use an AI‑first approach to mitigate systemic risks, improve engineering productivity focusing on automation and operational efficiency. Balance near‑term delivery with long‑term platform health, scalability, and sustainability. Qualifications Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or a related field. Minimum of 8+ years of experience in data engineering, software engineering, or platform engineering roles. Proven experience designing and evolving large‑scale, cloud‑based data platforms in AWS. Experience leading cross‑team, multi‑system data initiatives with long‑term architectural impact. Demonstrated ownership of mission‑critical production data systems. Experience influencing technical direction across teams without direct people management. Expert‑level knowledge of cloud data architectures and AWS data services. Advanced data modeling and data warehousing design expertise. Strong programming skills in Python, SQL, and/or Spark. Deep understanding of distributed systems, performance tuning, and scalability. Infrastructure‑as‑code, CI/CD, and automation expertise. Ability to design scalable, fault‑tolerant, and cost‑efficient data architectures. Strong knowledge of data quality, observability, and reliability practices. Knowledge of data governance, security, and compliance best practices. Strong debugging and root‑cause analysis skills across data pipelines and cloud infrastructure. Experience designing for reliability, observability, fault tolerance, and cost efficiency at scale. Experience implementing organization‑wide standards for data quality, security, and governance. Experience identifying and reducing technical debt across data platforms. Experience applying AI/GenAI in production to engineering workflows, automation, data quality, or developer productivity. Team & Reporting Individual‑contributor role reporting to the Manager of Software Engineering – Data. Collaborates with 14 peer teammates and cross‑functional departments on a regular basis. This role is not eligible for sponsorship #J-18808-Ljbffr