Lead Data Engineer

Lead Data Engineer

The Office of Information Technology (IT) is responsible for enabling State Bar's internal and external stakeholders by the management, implementation, and maintenance of an organization's technology to support of State Bar's mission and goals. The office's primary goals are to build and maintain functional capabilities, to support innovation and to ensure that all systems are running smoothly, efficiently, and securely to support the needs of the organization and its stakeholders.

The Office of Information Technology is seeking a Lead Data Engineer to join our dynamic team at the State Bar of California. In this role, you will define and drive the modernization of our data infrastructure using Microsoft cloud technologies. As the technical authority for the Bar's data platform, you will lead the development of scalable, automated data pipelines, establish governance standards, and guide cross-functional teams to deliver data driven solution that support Analytics, AI, compliance, and operational efficiency.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on technical leader with experience in building scalable, cloud-based data solutions. This individual brings a strong understanding of modern data architectures, data integration patterns, and secure design principles and is capable of driving architectural decisions that align with long-term business goals.

They have demonstrated success in leading cross-functional collaboration, setting standards for data quality and governance, and building reusable data frameworks that support analytics, automation, and decision making.

A clear understanding of compliance standards (e.g.,PII, PCI, HIPAA, CPRA) and experience applying those principles in large scale environments is essential. Microsoft certification in one or more of the following is strongly desired: Azure Data Engineer Associate; Power BI Data Analyst Associate; Azure Solutions Architect Expert; or any other data analysis-related certifications.

With minimum direction, the Lead IT Analyst provides technical leadership and direction for major IT projects, and/or serves as the technical authority for one or more related functions, including: network operating systems; software applications; data analytics applications, project/program management; product management; desktop support; system engineering; network infrastructure; database management; cloud services administration; and web server management. The Lead IT Analyst performs advanced, highly specialized IT work involving the business requirements, analysis, product roadmaps, planning, project management, architecture, designing, implementation, maintenance, troubleshooting, and/or enhancement of complex IT systems and procedures, and may serve in a lead capacity over other IT analysts and support staff.

The Lead IT Analyst is distinguished from the Senior IT Analyst in that the former performs the most complex IT operations and applications-related duties, provides technical leadership and direction to lower-level IT staff, and assumes responsibility for completion of major IT projects in accordance with the State Bar's needs. The Lead IT Analyst also provides strategic input and guidance within the incumbent's area of specialization.

Duties may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Lead the design, development, and maintenance of scalable data pipelines using Azure Data Factory, Synapse Analytics, and Data Lake Storage to ingest, transform, and publish structured and unstructured data.
• Drive the automation of end-to-end and event-driven workflows using Azure Logic Apps, ensuring real-time or scheduled data synchronization and integration with external systems.
• Direct enterprise-level data modeling and transformation efforts to support reporting, dashboards, and analytics, including validation and quality checks to ensure consistency and reliability.
• Guide and collaborate with IT and business teams to gather data requirements, define transformation logic, and develop shared documentation such as the data dictionaries.
• Develop and oversee enhancements of the Azure-based data architecture, focusing on scalability, reusability, and long-term maintainability.
• Establish and implement data governance standards, including metadata management, lineage tracking, and data privacy and security controls aligned with organizational compliance needs.
• Optimize datasets for Power BI and promote self-service analytics through clean, reusable data models and standardized practices.
• Manage, monitor, troubleshoot, and tune pipeline performance, proactively resolving issues and establishing observability standards for operational reliability.
• Ensure comprehensive documentation and lead knowledge transfer efforts to support long-term IT business and user sustainability and system adoption.
• Maintain and support databases for custom and legacy applications, including performance tuning, backup and recovery, indexing, and monitoring.
• Spearhead the optimization of stored procedures, ETL jobs, and scheduled tasks, ensuring efficiency and reliability across both modern and legacy environments.
• Partner with application teams to troubleshoot and resolve data-related issues, implement fixes, and ensure data integrity in legacy platforms.
• Lead enterprise data migration efforts aligning strategies for access control, security, and compliance as data moves from legacy to modern platforms.
• Build and maintain an enterprise data dictionary and catalog to improve data discoverability and consistency across the organization.
• Lead and implement data security and compliance standards, across the Bar's data footprint.

When assigned to the IT Application Engineering, Product Management, or Program Management Teams, duties may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Analyzes and evaluates existing IT applications, products, and systems for cost effective and efficient operation, and identifies opportunities for modifications and improvements; prepares feasibility studies and project proposals accordingly.
• Plans, designs, tests, develops, and integrates solutions based on operational needs to support the business roadmap.
• Determines project schedules and allocation of resources for projects; determines operating characteristics, requirements; monitors the utilization of resources to ensure optimal effectiveness and efficiency; resolves production issues; and ensures projects, tasks and other activities are completed on schedule and in a timely and efficient manner.
• Monitors and maintains existing IT applications and products to ensure optimal functionality.
• Acts as the leader, supervisor, and primary point of contact for their assigned team.
• Coordinates closely with other IT staff and business partners to accomplish the collective goals and objectives of assigned programs, projects, and activities.
• Develops, maintains, and enforces various standards, best practices, procedures, policies and standard operating processes.
• Serves as the subject matter expert, mentor, guide in their respective area of expertise.

When assigned to the IT Operations and Infrastructure Team Duties may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Supports the IT Director and IT Management team in the development, planning, estimating, and implementation of goals, objectives, and other activities for modifications and improvements.
• Acts as the leader, supervisor, and primary point of contact for the IT Operations and Infrastructure Team.
• Oversees the desktop support team and/or infrastructure team to ensure that all known incidents and Zendesk tickets are accurately identified and assigned efficiently; ensures that any tickets that cannot be resolved within agreed timeframes are properly escalated.
• Oversees the desktop support team and/or infrastructure team, and manages the ticket queue and incoming requests related to IT issues.
• Administers and supports configurations and maintains records of end-user's equipment. Endpoints include laptops, mobile devices, printers, AV systems, and other related peripherals.
• Oversees the infrastructure configuration and management to support State Bar data retention, security, business continuity, disaster recovery planning/testing, and information risk management policies.
• Coordinates closely with IT Application Engineering, IT PMO, and IT Product Management teams to accomplish the goals and objectives of assigned programs, projects, and activities.
• Collaborates with end-users and the system engineer team to ensure optimal functionality and system effectiveness.

Knowledge of:

• Advanced functions of computer information systems, including the core hardware and software components that comprise complex IT systems and networks, as well as personal computer applications, word processing, and spreadsheet programs.
• Analysis and evaluation techniques to plan, design, integrate, implement, maintain and troubleshoot complex IT systems and networks.
• Techniques and practices of supervision, leadership, project management, and training.
• Project management and information systems development, design, and maintenance.
• Technical, operational, and programming problem-solving analysis.
• Principles of Agile application development methodologies.
• Problem identification, analysis and evaluation.
• Principles of effective writing and verbal presentation.

Desired Knowledge:

• Proficient in building scalable data pipelines using Azure Data Factory, Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake, and Logic Apps.
• Strong SQL skills with experience in data transformation, validation, and optimization for reporting and analytics.
• Skilled in dimensional modeling and modern data platform design to support dashboarding and analytical use cases.
• Familiar with data quality frameworks, including validation, anomaly detection, and exception handling processes.
• Experience with metadata management, data cataloging, and governance tools such as Azure Purview (or equivalents