Data Engineer - Top Secret Clearance

As a Data Engineer, you will work closely with O&M, development, product, design, and client teams to maintain, enhance, and deliver secure data infrastructure and search capabilities across client domains. The role requires experience building scalable, real-time data streaming architectures, designing CDC pipelines, and ensuring data is accessible, reliable, and mission-ready. You will help build, modernize, and sustain data workflows using AWS Cloud, OpenShift, and related technologies while supporting secure deployment, system performance, and continuous improvement. Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain robust Change Data Capture (CDC) pipelines extracting data from MySQL databases using Debezium and routing to Apache Kafka.
• Develop and optimize Apache Flink applications to consume Debezium topics, perform complex multi-table joins, and output denormalized records back to Kafka.
• Configure and manage Vector pipelines to consume Flink-processed Kafka topics, perform object remapping, and reliably sink data into OpenSearch.
• Architect OpenSearch data management workflows, including the design and implementation of custom ingest pipelines, index templates, and lifecycle policies.
• Leverage AI skills to enhance data enrichment processes, implement vector/semantic search capabilities within OpenSearch, and support advanced analytics.
• Deploy, scale, and maintain data infrastructure on OpenShift using Helm charts and ArgoCD following GitOps best practices.
• Monitor system health, tune performance across the entire data streaming lifecycle (Kafka, Flink, OpenSearch), and ensure high availability and fault tolerance.
• Collaborate with backend engineers to ensure OpenSearch indexes are highly optimized for performant querying by downstream NestJS applications.
• Perform root cause analysis for system, application, data pipeline, and end-user issues, assisting Tier 2 support teams with complex problem resolutions.
• Maintain technical documentation related to data architecture, data flows, APIs, system configurations, and operational procedures while supporting system security coordination.
• Support occasional after-hours and weekend work for operational issue resolution, production deployments, data migrations, and maintenance windows.

• 7+ years of experience building scalable, real-time data streaming architectures and CDC patterns.

• Hands-on experience with Apache Kafka and deep proficiency in writing complex stream processing jobs using Apache Flink.

• Extensive experience with OpenSearch (or Elasticsearch), including cluster management, writing ingest pipelines, managing index templates, and writing complex, optimized search queries.

• Applied knowledge of integrating AI/ML models into data pipelines, working with vector databases (e.g., OpenSearch k-NN), or building AI-driven data products.

• Experience with Debezium for CDC and Vector (by Datadog) for observability and data routing.

• Proven experience deploying applications in Kubernetes/OpenShift environments with strong familiarity with infrastructure-as-code and deployment workflows using Helm and ArgoCD.

• Ability to work closely with software engineers (particularly those using Node.js/NestJS) to define data contracts and query patterns.

• Ability to design, develop, and operate highly available data services across availability zones and regions.

• Self-starter with strong problem-solving, analytical, decision-making, and verbal and written communication skills. Preferred Skills

• Experience working with cloud platforms such as AWS.

• Support for data quality, data validation, metadata management, and data governance practices.

• Familiarity with secure software development practices, vulnerability remediation, access control, and compliance requirements in federal or classified environments.

• Familiarity with Agile, Scrum, SAFe, or other iterative development methodologies, with experience delivering solutions to government customers.

• Experience serving in an "on-call" role supporting emergency response to application or system issues on occasion.

Certifications:

• Security+ certification is preferred.
• Other relevant certifications include CCNA, CCNP, CISA, CISSP, and CISM.

Years of Experience: 5 years+ Education: Bachelors Degree

Salary: $140,000 - $170,000

About Metric5 Metric5 is a small business with big company benefits. We have a passionate team of smart, fun, caring professionals, and we are here for the long haul. Join our growing team in a business where your contributions make an enormous impact. Our organization offers a comprehensive employee benefits package, continuous professional development, with a best in class company culture that is enjoyable to work in and supports the growth of each of our professionals. Our benefits include:

• Health & Dental Insurance with 100% of individual coverage paid for by the company
• Vision Insurance
• Life & Short Term Disability Insurance
• 401K with company match (employees are immediately vested)
• Paid Vacation
• 9 Paid Holidays per year (plus 2 paid floating holidays)
• Parental Leave
• Employee Bonuses
• Professional Development Reimbursement Program
• Tuition Assistance Program, $140,000.00