Principal Data Platform Engineer

Title: DMHS - Principal Data Platform Engineer

Location: NC, United States
Job#: 3040291

Pay Range:
$70 - $85 per hour

Job Description:

If interested, please send resume to [email protected]

Location: Remote (EST hours)

Pay Rate: $70-85 / hr

Clearance: Active Top Secret

Role Overview

This position is for the founding owner of a new data and AI platform supporting federal background investigation work. The role involves designing and building the data platform from the ground up, owning the architecture, and partnering with cloud engineering. It is a hands-on role where compliance with FedRAMP Moderate, NIST 800-171, and CUI handling are primary design constraints.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and establish the organizations data and AI platform, including architecture, compute, storage, and lakehouse foundation.
• Codify the platform as infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) and build CI/CD pipelines for environment promotion.
• Establish data governance, cataloging, lineage, and fine-grained access control.
• Build and own the ingestion, transformation, and pipeline layer for analysis-ready data products.
• Design the platform to operate within FedRAMP Moderate, NIST 800-171, and CUI constraints.
• Define the artifact promotion process for signed, validated artifacts.
• Partner with cloud engineering on infrastructure and security boundaries.
• Enable the data science and ML team with platform capabilities, governed data, and tooling.
• Own platform reliability, performance, and cost discipline.
• Set engineering standards, patterns, and documentation for the data team.

Required Qualifications

Education: A Bachelors degree in a technical field, computer science, software engineering, or an equivalent combination of education and experience is required.

Experience: 8-10 years of experience in data engineering or data platform engineering, with demonstrated principal-level ownership. Experience standing up a data platform or lakehouse from scratch is required.

Technical Skills: U.S. citizenship is required. Proficiency in Python and SQL is necessary, along with hands-on cloud experience with a major provider (Azure preferred; AWS or GCP considered). Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), CI/CD for data workloads, and platform-level data governance is also required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with Databricks, including Unity Catalog, Databricks Asset Bundles, and MLflow.
• Experience in regulated or accredited environments such as FedRAMP, NIST 800-171, CMMC, CUI handling, or the ATO/RMF process.
• Government or defense contracting experience.
• Familiarity with MLOps patterns like model registry and model serving.
• Experience with cost governance or FinOps for cloud data platforms.
• Knowledge of Spark or PySpark.

Soft Skills

• Ability to translate business needs into performant, well-architected data solutions.
• Collaboration skills across technical and non-technical teams.
• Clear documentation and communication capabilities.

Everforth Apex is a world-class IT services company that serves thousands of clients across the globe. When you join Everforth Apex, you become part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. We offer quality career resources, training, certifications, development opportunities, and a comprehensive benefits package. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in many awards, including ClearlyRateds Best of Staffing in Talent Satisfaction in the United States and Great Place to Work in the United Kingdom and Mexico.

Everforth Apex uses a virtual recruiter as part of the application process. Click here for more details. By applying for this job, you agree to receive calls, AI-generated calls, text messages, or emails from Everforth Apex and its affiliates, and contracted partners. Frequency varies for text messages. Message and data rates may apply. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. You can reply STOP to cancel and HELP for help. 

Everforth Apex Benefits Overview: Everforth Apex offers a range of supplemental benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and other insurance plans that offer an optional layer of financial protection. We offer an ESPP (employee stock purchase program) and a 401K program which allows you to contribute typically within 30 days of starting, with a company match after 12 months of tenure. Everforth Apex also offers a HSA (Health Savings Account on the HDHP plan), a SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions, a corporate discount savings program and other discounts. In terms of professional development, Everforth Apex hosts an on-demand training program, provides access to certification prep and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars once you have 6+ months of tenure, and certification discounts and other perks to associations that include CompTIA and IIBA. Everforth Apex has a dedicated customer service team for our Consultants that can address questions around benefits and other resources, as well as a certified Career Coach. You can access a full list of our benefits, programs, support teams and resources within our 'Welcome Packet' as well, which an Everforth Apex team member can provide.

Everforth Apex Systems is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate or allow discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, genetic information, registered domestic partner status, marital status, disability, status as a crime victim, protected veteran status, political affiliation, union membership, or any other characteristic protected by law. Everforth Apex will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable law.

If you require an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to participate in an interview with a virtual recruiter or to use our website for a search or application, please contact our Benefits Department at [email protected] or 804-523-8228. Please note that this contact information is strictly to be used for medical ADA accommodations and that no other inquiries will be answered.

UnitedHealthcare creates and publishes the Transparency in Coverage Machine-Readable Files on behalf of Everforth Apex Systems.

Employee Type: Contract

Remote: Yes

Location: Home, NC, US

Pay Range: $70 - $85 per hour

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