Senior Data Engineer I

Senior Data Engineer I
 Location: Tysons Corner, VA
 Clearance Required: Active TS/SCI with CI Poly 

Rapid Strategy is an award-winning, African-American-owned small business providing advanced cybersecurity, data engineering, and IT modernization services to federal and commercial clients. Our mission is to deliver secure, high-impact solutions that protect and enable mission success. We are seeking a Senior Data Engineer I to join our growing technical team supporting a classified customer. This role focuses on building, deploying, and maintaining scalable data pipelines and engineering components that enable secure data brokering and exchange across multiple environments and classification domains. The ideal candidate combines technical depth in data engineering, fluency with cloud-native automation, and a strong understanding of secure data architectures in federal mission spaces.

Key Responsibilities

·       Design, build, and operationalize data pipelines and cloud infrastructure that enable secure data sharing across diverse producers and consumers.

·       Collaborate with internal and external partners to integrate data through REST APIs, S3, and other exchange interfaces.

·       Deploy and maintain Python-native data pipelines, optimizing performance and ensuring high availability in production environments.

·       Provide Tier 2/3 troubleshooting and incident resolution support for data pipelines, ensuring minimal downtime and quick recovery.

·       Implement Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) solutions using tools such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or Ansible to automate deployments and configurations.

·       Apply RMF security principles and ensure appropriate controls are implemented for data pipelines in multi-domain cloud environments.

·       Work with tools and frameworks such as Apache NiFi, Hadoop, HDFS, Kafka, and Cloudera Data Platform to streamline ingestion, transformation, and delivery processes.

·       Partner with cybersecurity teams to embed secure design principles throughout the data pipeline lifecycle.

Required Qualifications

·       Active TS/SCI clearance with the ability to obtain and maintain a CI Polygraph.

·       4+ years of experience designing, developing, and managing data pipelines and ingestion frameworks.

·       Proficiency with AWS cloud services across multiple classification domains (e.g., IL5 to IL6+).

·       Experience automating cloud infrastructure deployments using Terraform, CloudFormation, or Ansible.

·       Strong scripting and programming skills in Python, Go, and Bash.

·       Working knowledge of RMF principles and implementation of security controls in data systems.

·       Experience with NiFi, Hadoop/HDFS, Kafka, and Cloudera Data Platform preferred.

·       Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts clearly to stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

·       Experience supporting federal or defense data engineering programs.

·       Professional certifications such as AWS Solutions Architect, Cloudera Certified Developer, or Security+.

·       Familiarity with DevSecOps pipelines and continuous integration frameworks.

 Why Rapid Strategy

 At Rapid Strategy, we combine mission experience with innovation. Our engineers support some of the nation’s most critical data and security programs, ensuring that complex information systems operate efficiently, securely, and with integrity. We value curiosity, accountability, and continuous improvement. If you’re passionate about data, automation, and mission enablement in secure environments, we’d love to have you on our team.