Data & AI Engineer
Dark Wolf Solutions seeks a Data & AI Engineer to architect, deploy, and scale GCP-based data, ML, and generative AI platforms for secure defense environments. Day-to-day work spans petabyte-scale pipelines (BigQuery, Dataflow, Spark), Kubernetes, Terraform IaC, and leading a technical pod; requires U.S. citizenship and an active Secret clearance.
- Compensation
- $120K–$190K / yr
- Location
- Dark Wolf Hubs
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Not specified
- Employment
- Contract
- Experience
- 4+ years
- Category
- Ai engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field (or equivalent practical experience)
- 4+ years of data engineering experience
- 4+ years architecting data structures for model grounding and pipelines that transform raw data into tool-accessible assets for agentic workflows
- 4+ years with Python, Scala, SQL, and Go for high-performance data platform development
- 4+ years with distributed systems internals, LSM trees, column-family stores, and warehouse/lakehouse storage formats
- 4+ years with Kubernetes cluster management, custom operators, and service mesh integration
- 4+ years with enterprise data strategy, conceptual-to-physical data modeling, and streaming data schema contracts
- 4+ years on GCP supporting AI/ML research, experimentation, and production delivery
- Experience with Apache Spark, Flink, Kafka, Ray, and workflow orchestration engines
- Experience architecting multi-cloud and hybrid cloud data platforms with IaC via Terraform
- Understanding of DevSecOps pipelines, automated compliance testing, and secret rotation management
- Strong understanding of GCP services and technologies
- Excellent communication and teamwork skills
- Must be a U.S. Citizen holding an active Secret Security Clearance
Nice to have
- Active Google Cloud Professional Certification (Data Engineer, ML Engineer, Cloud Architect) or CISSP
- Track record architecting data solutions for air-gapped or high-assurance defense networks
- Experience with GCP security/compliance products (Security Command Center, Assured Workloads) and DoD/DISA cybersecurity policies
Full description
Dark Wolf is seeking a Data & AI Engineer specializing in Google Cloud Platform to architect, deploy, and scale advanced data, machine learning (ML) and generative artificial intelligence (AI) workflows in secure cloud environments. In this role, you will be responsible for leading the architectural development, scaling, and governance of enterprise-grade data platforms. In this role you will leverage GCP’s AI and data ecosystem to transform complex unstructured data into production-ready assets for agentic search, graph-based entity resolution, and multi-modal AI systems. In addition, the ideal candidate will be responsible for designing secure, mission-relevant data meshes, establishing automated data quality frameworks, optimizing distributed compute clusters, and ensuring high resilience across air-gapped and multi-cloud networks.
Responsibilities:
- Lead the architectural design and implementation of cloud-native distributed, high-throughput batch and streaming data platforms.
- Optimize distributed execution engines to handle petabyte-scale datasets under strict SLAs.
- Implement and collaborate on Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to provision data platform assets across multi-cloud infrastructure.
- Establish zero-trust security controls, data lineage tools, and automated compliance scanning for regulated data environments.
- Design and manage ETL/ELT pipelines using cloud-native, Google services such as Cloud Storage, Dataflow, Cloud Run, Agent Platform, and BigQuery
- Understand big data processing frameworks for large-scale data sets such as Apache Spark.
- Architect and process large-scale datasets and cloud data warehouses using tools such as Google BigQuery and Knowledge Catalog.
- Programming experience to build automation scripts, handle data structures and connect to APIs.
- Configure and manage GCP services such as Compute Engine, App Engine, Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Storage, BigQuery, Dataflow, and Cloud SQL.
- Enforce cloud security best practices and support DoD/DISA Authority to Operate (ATO) processes.
- Act as Technical Pod Lead, driving Agile spring deliverables, establishing technical standards, and mentoring data engineering staff.
- Stay up-to-date on the latest GCP services and technologies.
- Work collaboratively within a fast paced Agile team environment.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)
- 4+ years of data engineering experience.
- 4+ years of experience in architecting data structures for model grounding and engineering pipelines that transform raw data into tool-accessible assets for agentic workflows.