Data Engineer

The City of Syracuse’s Office of Analytics, Performance, and Innovation (API) strives to develop new and creative solutions to our city’s civic challenges and champion an administration-wide effort in data-driven decision-making and performance management. In the past several years, API has collaborated across departments to leverage data to build dashboards to track key performance indicators, improve the delivery of services, improve digital security and processes, and communicate with residents on City investments and programs.

Are you passionate about the role that data can play in the public sector, especially city governments? Do you enjoy tackling complex issues with an analytical approach? The Office of Analytics, Performance, and Innovation (API) is looking for a Data Engineer to join our data team.

About the Role

This role will report to the Director of Analytics and Data Management and work closely with other members of the Office of Analytics, Performance, and Innovation. The Data Engineer will help the City grow its analytical capacity across the board and expand the City’s data platform, built on the Azure environment. They will be responsible for developing a scalable data architecture, improving and streamlining data acquisition processes, and setting up tools and pipelines to bring together data that will be inputs of data analytics and data science products.

At a high level, some of the day-to-day responsibilities for this role may include:

  • Staying abreast of industry best practices and incorporating them, maintaining and expanding the City’s data infrastructure, including the City’s Azure-based data platform.

  • Designing, building and maintaining ETL processes.

  • Assessing, understanding, and extracting data from legacy systems and prospective digital platforms used by City departments.

  • Documenting, tracking, and monitoring problems to ensure timely resolution, as well as setting up, configuring and supporting internal and/or external computer network operations.

  • Identifying, designing, and implementing internal process improvements to provide greater scalability, optimized data delivery, and manual processes automation.

  • Understanding the City’s tech stack and helping integrate new systems with existing systems.

  • Managing and overseeing the scoping, development, testing and implementation of data systems and solutions.

  • Designing, developing, and performing day-to-day maintenance of various database systems.

  • Troubleshooting and resolving data-related issues and bottlenecks in a timely manner.

  • Working with departments across the city and other partners to understand business needs, gathering requirements and building data products and applications, and translating operational needs into technical solutions.

  • Supporting the Data Program Manager in sharing City data with residents through the City’s Open Data Portal.

Desired Educational Qualifications and Experience

  • A bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or another STEM field

  • a Master’s in a STEM field is a plus

  • Strong analytical, problem solving, and communication skills, including mapping of business needs or issues to technical solutions

  • Experience building and maintaining database systems

  • Experience working as a hands-on developer and architect for job streams, and process handling

  • Knowledge of ETL requirements with strong understanding of ETL methodologies and design patterns

  • The ability to understand data architecture and engineering decisions and being able to communicate those technical nuances in plain language

  • Demonstrated ability to manage complex multi-stakeholder projects

  • Knowledge of programming languages, specifically SQL, Python, R

  • Experience with Azure Databricks, PySpark, Pandas

  • Problem solving skills and the ability to learn from scattered resources

  • Experience with data visualization tools is a plus

  • Experience with ESRI ArcGIS or other GIS systems is a plus

  • Experience with cloud-based data warehousing solutions such as Azure or AWS is a plus. Azure certifications (AZ-900, DP-203), in particular are highly desired. The City will provide access to training and resources to take the official Microsoft exams if the data engineer hasn’t been certified yet but desires to be so.

About API 

If you join our team, you will be working alongside a group of innovators and change makers that are striving to make the City of Syracuse more effective and equitable for residents by catalyzing local government to be more responsive, experimental and informed by evidence. Our functional expertise lies in areas such as project management, design thinking, data analytics, geospatial analysis, and more.

Additional Information 

This role is full-time. You must have authorization to work in the United States. The City offers benefits. 

The City of Syracuse expects employees to work in-person.  The team is flexible in allowing members to work remotely on occasion, but the expectation is that you will be in-person most days.  If you do not live in Syracuse, City regulations require that you must establish residency in the City within six months of starting the position.

Interested applicants should e-mail an up-to-date resume and cover letter to the Director of Analytics and Data Management, Jason Thomas, at jthomas@syr.gov.  Please name your files using the ‘LastName_Resume’ and ‘LastName_CoverLetter’ standard (For example, ‘Thomas_Resume.doc’ and ‘Thomas_CoverLetter.doc’).  We will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis and aim to reply to your application within two weeks.  
 
The City of Syracuse is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

The City of Syracuse cannot provide Visa sponsorship at this time.

This role is full-time. The Data Engineer will get biweekly payments equivalent to a $70,000 to $75,000 yearly salary and a competitive benefits package.

City of Syracuse residency will be required.