Data Platform Engineer

Data Platform Engineer

Location: 303 West Madison Street, Suite 1650, Chicago, IL 60606 / Hybrid (3-4 days in-office)

Experience: 1–5 years

About the Role

We are seeking a Data Platform Engineer to support the development and productionization of internal data, analytics, reporting, and AI-enabled tools. This role will work closely with the Data Science function, Finance, and IT stakeholders to improve or rebuild backend services, maintain cloud-hosted databases, develop data pipelines, support Azure-based deployments, and help deliver trusted reporting capabilities using Power BI.

The ideal candidate is comfortable working across backend development, SQL databases, data integration, and cloud application infrastructure. This is a hands-on engineering role for someone who wants to grow into data platform, backend, and cloud engineering responsibilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Review and improve existing backend/data application infrastructure.
• Design, implement, and maintain relational database tables, schemas, views, stored procedures, and migrations. Refine existing database schemas, table structures, relationships, and indexing strategies
• Develop data ingestion and transformation pipelines from financial and other internal business systems, APIs, spreadsheets, and structured documents.
• Experience supporting analytics, reporting, Power BI solutions, or internal business applications.
• Help establish governed, reusable data sources that support consistent financial, project, utilization, forecasting, and operational reporting.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, Databricks, Azure Synapse, or similar data warehouse/lakehouse platforms is a plus.
• Assist with CI/CD workflows, GitHub Actions, branch-based deployment processes, and troubleshooting failed builds.
• Implement logging, validation, error handling, and basic monitoring for internal tools.
• Collaborate with data science and AI engineering lead to convert prototypes into reliable internal applications.
• Document APIs, data models, pipeline logic, deployment steps, and operational procedures.
• Support integration with business systems such as project databases, document repositories, analytics dashboards, and AI workflow platforms.
• Help maintain dev/test/prod environment separation and support controlled releases.
• Support Azure-hosted application environments, including App Service, Static Web Apps, Azure SQL, Redis Cache, storage, environment variables, and deployment configuration.

Required Core Technical Stack

• 1–5 years of experience in backend development, data engineering, software engineering, or a related technical role (internships/co-ops count).
• Experience developing or supporting Power BI reports and dashboards, including Power Query, data modeling, DAX measures, and scheduled refreshes.
• Strong SQL skills, including schema design, joins, indexing concepts, and query optimization basics.
• Experience with Node.js and/or Python for backend services or data processing.
• Familiarity with REST APIs, JSON, authentication concepts, and server-side application design.
• Experience with Git and collaborative development workflows.
• Exposure to cloud platforms, preferably Microsoft Azure.
• Ability to debug technical issues across database, backend, and deployment layers.
• Strong documentation habits and ability to communicate technical work clearly.
• Strong collaborative mindset, with the ability to communicate clearly, ask thoughtful questions, discuss technical tradeoffs, and work effectively with cross-functional team members.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database, Azure Static Web Apps, Azure Functions, or Azure Storage.
• Experience with FastAPI, Flask, Express, or similar backend frameworks.
• Experience with CI/CD tools such as GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps.
• Familiarity with Prisma, SQLAlchemy, Alembic, or other ORM/migration tools.
• Basic frontend familiarity with React/TypeScript is helpful but not required.
• Well-developed interpersonal skills, owns a problem to the end, and proud to share in team's success.

Compensation & Benefits

At Walker Consultants, we are committed to maintaining fairness and equity in our pay practices. For this role, the estimated base salary range is $85,000 – $120,000 per year. The final salary offered may vary based on factors such as experience, qualifications, skills, location, internal equity, and other considerations permitted by law. We value open conversations about compensation and welcome the opportunity to discuss more about base salary and Walker's total rewards philosophy during the recruiting process.

We offer a robust total compensation and rewards package designed to support our employees' well-being, growth, and diverse needs, including:

• Annual discretionary bonus program
• Opportunity to purchase Walker stock – Walker is 100% employee-owned!
• Medical, dental, vision, company-paid life insurance
• Mental wellness benefits
• Health Savings Account with company contribution
• 401(k) with company match
• Flexible Spending Accounts and Commuter Spending Accounts
• 529 college savings plan
• A minimum of 3 weeks of Paid Time Off per year
• 9 paid holidays per year, including 3 paid floating holidays
• 5 days of bereavement leave and PTO Donation Bank to help during difficult times
• 100% compensation replacement during short-term disability leaves
• Paid parental leave that allows an additional week of paid time alongside short-term disability leave and/or applicable state paid leave programs
• Paid community involvement hours
• Tuition and licensure reimbursement, and sponsorship of professional memberships
• Internal conferences and professional development opportunities
• Employee Resource Groups and Affinity Groups

Why Walker Consultants?

Over the past 60 years, Walker has become recognized as a leader in the parking industry and provides a wide range of engineering, planning, and architecture services to facilities of all kinds. Walker also provides Forensic, Restoration, Building Envelope, and Vertical Transportation Consulting Services, a fast-growing part of our business in the last 10 years.

Walker hires exceptional people to remain among the top-performing firms in the business. We reward our employees for their effective contributions, challenge them, and provide professional development opportunities and the autonomy needed to grow. As a learning organization, our senior experts routinely share their knowledge in a collaborative environment, ensuring that best practices are carried forward to the next generation of leadership.

Walker is proud to be an employee-owned firm with an open-book philosophy that highly values integrity, honesty, and fairness. We encourage new ideas and contributions. We work hard and have fun doing what we love. This is who we are.

Join Us!

We know that great talent comes in many forms. If you're excited about this role but don't meet every single requirement, we still encourage you to apply! You might just be the right person for this role—or another opportunity on our team.

At Walker Consultants, we are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive. We welcome and encourage applications from individuals of all abilities. If you require any accommodations during the application or interview process, or in the workplace, please let us know—we will work with you to ensure a fair and accessible experience.

Walker Consultants is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). We invite all qualified applicants to apply and do not discriminate against individuals because of their race, color, religion, national origin, gender, physical or mental disability, veteran status, or age.