Big Data Engineer (Rockville)

Software Guidance & Assistance, Inc., (SGA), is searching for a Big Data Engineer for a CONTRACT assignment with one of our premier Regulatory clients in Rockville, MD or Tysons, VA.
We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Big Data Engineer to design, develop, and optimize large-scale data processing systems. In this role, you will work closely with cross-functional teams to architect data pipelines, implement data integration solutions, and ensure the performance, scalability, and reliability of big data platforms. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud platforms, and modern big data technologies such as Hadoop, Spark etc
Responsibilities :

• Design, develop, and maintain large-scale data processing pipelines using Big Data technologies (e.g., Hadoop, Spark, Python, Scala).
• Implement data ingestion, storage, transformation, and analysis of solutions that are scalable, efficient, and reliable.
• Stay current with industry trends and emerging Big Data technologies to continuously improve the data architecture
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand business requirements and translate them into technical solutions.
• Optimize and enhance existing data pipelines for performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Develop automated testing frameworks and implement continuous testing for data quality assurance.
• Conduct unit, integration, and system testing to ensure the robustness and accuracy of data pipelines.
• Work with data scientists and analysts to support data-driven decision-making across the organization.
• Ability to write and maintain automated unit, integration, and end-to-end tests
• Monitor and troubleshoot data pipelines in production environments to identify and resolve issues.
  

Required Skills :

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or related discipline with at least five (5) years of related experience, or equivalent training and/or work experience; Master's degree and past Financial Services industry experience preferred.
• Demonstrated technical expertise in Object Oriented and database technologies/concepts which resulted in deployment of enterprise quality solutions.
• Past experience with developing enterprise quality solutions in an iterative or Agile environment.
• Extensive knowledge of industry leading software engineering approaches including Test Automation, Build Automation and Configuration Management frameworks.
• Strong written and verbal technical communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to develop effective working relationships that improved the quality of work products.
• Should be well organized, thorough, and able to handle competing priorities.
• Ability to maintain focus and develop proficiency in new skills rapidly.
• Ability to work in a fast paced environment.
• Experience with object oriented programming languages such as Java, Scala or Python.
  

Essential Technical Skills:

• AI Tool Proficiency: Hands-on experience with AI development tools (GitHub Copilot, Q Developer, ChatGPT, Claude, etc.)
• Technical Background: Strong software development background with ability to contribute to technical discussions
• Agile Methodology: Extensive experience with Scrum, Kanban, and continuous improvement practices
  

Big Data technologies

• Experience with Big data technologies such as Hadoop, Spark, Hive & Trino
• Evaluate understanding of common issues like:
• Data skew and strategies to mitigate it.
• Working with massive data volumes in PetaBytes.
• Troubleshootingjob failures due to resource limitations, bad data, scalability challenged.
• Look for real-world debugging and mitigation stories.

AI Skills

• Prompt Engineering: Proficiency in crafting effective prompts for AI coding assistants and analysis tools
• AI Workflow Design: Experience redesigning development processes to leverage AI capabilities
• Data Analysis: Ability to interpret AI-generated insights and translate them into actionable team improvements
• Change Management: Experience leading teams through AI adoption and workflow transformation
  

SQL Skills (Window Functions, Joins, Complex Queries)

• Assess comfort with SQL window functions, multi-table joins, aggregations.
• Provide examples or ask them to write/optimize SQL queries on the spot.
• Probe how they handle edge cases like NULLs, duplicates, ordering, etc.
  

Apache Spark (Development, Internals & Tuning)

• Test their understanding of Spark's core architecture — executors, tasks, stages, DAG.
• Focus on Spark performance tuning techniques: partitioning, caching, broadcast joins, etc.
• Ask scenario-based questions on troubleshooting slow running/stuck jobs or resource issues in Spark.
• Explore their experience optimizing Spark jobs for large-scale datasets.
  

Cloud Technologies

• Check exposure to AWS services like S3, EMR, Glue, Lambda, Athena, etc.
• Ask how they've used S3 with Spark (e.g., dealing with file formats, consistency issues).
• EKS, Serverless knowledge, etc.
  

Programming - Python or Scala

• Assess ability to write clean, modular, and performant code.
• Look for experience in functional programming concepts (e.g., immutability, higher-order functions).
• Ask about real-world use cases where they wrote scalable data processing code.
• Evaluate understanding of collections, concurrency, and memory management.
  

Preferred Skills :

• Experience with managing production data pipelines/ETL systems
• Experience with CI/CD
• Experience writing test cases
• AWS certifications
  

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SGA is a technology and resource solutions provider driven to stand out. We are a women-owned business. Our mission: to solve big IT problems with a more personal, boutique approach. Each year, we match consultants like you to more than 1,000 engagements. When we say let's work better together, we mean it. You'll join a diverse team built on these core values: customer service, employee development, and quality and integrity in everything we do. Be yourself, love what you do and find your passion at work. Please find us at .
SGA is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of Race, Color, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Religion, National Origin, Disability, Veteran Status, Age, Marital Status, Pregnancy, Genetic Information, or Other Legally Protected Status. We are committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, and our services, programs, and activities. Please visit our company EEO page to request an accommodation or assistance regarding our policy.