Senior Data Engineer (Temp to Hire)

We are adding a Senior Data Engineer to our team!

Who We Are:

Since 1909, National Guardian Life Insurance Company (NGL) has been one of America’s most successful and highly rated independent life insurance companies. We specialize in a suite of innovative products for life’s journey, giving people the financial stability, careful guidance and peace of mind to lead a life filled with confidence, dignity and grace.

NGL's Core Values – integrity, dependability, collaboration, compassion and growth are a foundation of our company and help to build on the interactions we have with our policyholders, partners, funeral homes and each other. We believe in creating an inclusive, welcoming environment for all where diversity is celebrated, and everyone is encouraged to live their best, most authentic self. We offer Employee Resource Groups for employees to get involved, learn, network, and offer professional and personal development opportunities.

With over 100 years of experience, our passion is to serve people. Learn more. 

Work Environment: NGL offers a flexible work environment where employees can work fully remote, hybrid or onsite at our Madison, Wis. office. We support virtual working arrangements in certain states outside of WI.

A Day in the Life:

The Senior Data Engineer works in an Agile team environment and is responsible for developing and optimizing our data and data pipeline architecture, as well as optimizing data flow and collection for cross functional teams. The Senior Data Engineer provides thought leadership and hands-on effort to support our software developers, database architects, data analysts and data scientists on data initiatives and will ensure optimal data delivery architecture is consistent throughout ongoing projects. In addition, the Senior Data Engineer assists with the development and maintenance of analytic tools, data visualizations, and the platforms that supply them as well as providing thought leadership within the Data Science Team. The Senior Data Engineer helps train and develop more junior engineers as appropriate and is expected to develop an understanding of the Company's strategic business goals, processes and solution requirements in order to effectively develop technical solutions that meet business needs.

Primary Responsibilities: 

Software Development

Assembles large, complex data sets that meet functional / non-functional business requirements.

Identifies, designs, and implements internal process improvements: automating manual processes, optimizing data delivery, re-designing infrastructure for greater scalability, etc.

Builds the AWS infrastructure required for optimal extraction, transformation, and loading of data from a wide variety of data sources using services such as Python, PySpark, EC2, S3, Data Lake, Glue jobs, Lambda functions, and Delta Lake.

Implement infrastructure as code (IaC) practices to automate deployment and management of data services.

Contribute to the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CiCd) process.

Builds analytics tools that utilize the data pipeline to provide actionable insights into customer acquisition, operational efficiency and other key business performance metrics.

Develops in-depth understanding of data environment and leverages knowledge to build robust, scalable solution.

Develops subject matter expertise (Insurance data and processes, operational systems) and applies to development of solutions.

Collaborates with other developers to transform backlog items into high-functioning, well-designed, testable and efficient code.

Writes and maintains technical documentation to describe application logic, coding, testing, changes, history and corrections.

Participates in and perform code/design reviews; strives for continuous improvement of code quality and development practices.

Implements AWS resources to build out cloud data architecture.

Applies knowledge of Microservices and Terraform infrastructure to create efficient, automated and loosely coupled architectures.

Production Support

Performs routine maintenance and upgrades to make systems more secure and efficient, and to adapt them to any new requirements

Assists in the maintenance of NGL’s database and analytics systems

Anticipates system/application challenges and proposes solutions; recommend improvements to existing software as necessary

Troubleshoots and resolves issues for both internal and third-party business applications

Assists with issue identification, investigation, and resolution process of support incidents

Provides off-hours support of scheduled production processing and system maintenance when necessary

Other

Shares ownership of the solution deployment, testing, quality, monitoring and operational excellence with the rest of the Agile team

Participates in regular team and stakeholder meetings

Participates in code reviews and mentor junior engineers.

Collaborates with cross-functional teams to understand data requirements and translate them into scalable solutions

Continually develop skill-sets and abilities to keep them relevant, current and applicable to NGL's current and future needs

Follows software development life cycle and quality assurance best practices and governance

Ensures compliance with security and privacy standards.

Performs other duties and responsibilities as needed

Essential to Your Success:

Ability to understand high-level architecture and design content, and how it relates to implementation deployment

Advanced working Python and PySpark knowledge and experience working with AWS services such as Glue, Lambda, SQS, SNS, RDS, Redshift, Athena, DynamoDB, and S3 to support data transformation, data structures, metadata, dependency and workload management

Strong knowledge of terraform including modules

Strong knowledge of Github (or version control equivalent) including opening and reviewing pull requests, branching strategies, and working in a collaborative environment

Experience building and optimizing data pipelines, architectures and data sets

Strong understanding of DevOps practices and infrastructure automation

Working knowledge of message queuing, stream processing, and highly scalable data stores

Successful history of manipulating, processing and extracting value from large disconnected datasets

Ability to perform root cause analysis on internal and external data and processes to answer specific business questions and identify opportunities for improvement

Advanced knowledge and understanding of relevant business and system operations, policies, and procedures.

Strong project management and organizational skills

Proven abilities to take initiative and be innovative

Experience supporting and working with cross-functional teams in a dynamic Agile and Scrum environment

Strong technical and non-technical communication (verbal and written) and interpersonal skills

Excellent organizational skills and time/priority management

AWS certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Data Analytics - Specialty) are a plus.

Education Requirements:

Preferred:  

4 Year / Bachelors Degree

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology/Systems, or other related field.

Years of Experience:

A minimum of five years of experience with Python and building data pipelines.

A minimum of three years of experience working with AWS services with a focus on data and working with infrastructure as code (IAC).

A minimum of one to two years of experience building or maintaining CI/CD pipelines.

A minimum of four years of applying Agile methodology (Scrum and/or Kanban, Test Driven Development).

NGL is committed to creating a diverse environment and is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), gender identity or gender expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, physical or mental disability, protected medical condition as defined by applicable state or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.

NGL is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in the recruitment process. To request an accommodation, please contact [email protected].