Data Information Engineer – Data Modeling & Information Engineering

Job Title: Data Information Engineer – Data Modeling & Information Engineering

Location: Remote

Duration: 12 Months

Job Summary:

This position serves as the portfolio’s senior information engineering and enterprise data modeling authority, responsible for defining and governing shared information models, schemas, data standards, and event/API data contracts across Transportation Operations applications and systems. The role establishes consistent semantic and structural definitions for operational information exchanged across legacy and modern platforms, enabling interoperability, reuse, trustworthy data exchange, and scalable integration across the portfolio.

Key Responsibilities

Own the portfolio-wide information modeling framework for data in motion and at rest, ensuring alignment with client's enterprise data modeling standards and applicable security, performance, interoperability, and governance requirements.

• Evaluate, design, implement, and maintain the technical information frameworks for the portfolio’s ecosystem
• Lead creation of standardized data models, including database, event, and API contracts
• Design, develop, and maintain conceptual, logical, and physical data models and schemas to support business and technical requirements
• Analyze legacy data systems, including mainframe environments, to inform target-state information models and migration strategies.
• Verify and maintain data integrity across the system portfolio
• Review database design and recommend opportunities for enhancement
• Evaluate, establish, and implement policies and procedures relating to database management, security, maintenance, and utilization
• Contribute to the development and refinement of client’s Enterprise Information Management standards
• Maintain traceability between business concepts, logical information models, physical schemas, APIs, and event contracts.
• Translate complex operational concepts into precise, reusable data definitions and models that can be consistently implemented across multiple systems.
• Develop current-state, transition-state, and target-state information models to support modernization of legacy operational systems.
• Evaluate data models and event contracts for semantic consistency, interoperability, backward compatibility, reuse, and downstream consumer impact.
• Define and govern schema lifecycle and evolution practices across databases, APIs, and event-streaming platforms.
• Lead information modeling working sessions with business SMEs, system and solution architects, application teams, integration teams, and data engineering teams.
• Establish modeling standards and conventions governing conceptual, logical, physical, API, and event-based information structures.
• Define and govern canonical information models and shared business entities across Transportation Operations systems, including authoritative definitions, relationships, identifiers, and ownership.

Top 3 Must-Have Qualifications:

• Schema and Data Modeling Mastery: Expert conceptual, logical, and physical modeling for relational and event schemas, including grain, keys, normalization tradeoffs, constraints, effective dating, event versus processing time, history, and state.
• Data Naming and Semantic Standards : Demonstrated expertise establishing governed, semantically transparent naming conventions for enterprise data models, database objects, API contracts, and event schemas. Experience applying ISO/IEC 11179-5 principles or comparable enterprise naming and metadata standards is strongly preferred.
• Event Schema Governance and Kafka/Confluent Expertise : Strong Kafka fundamentals and Schema Registry expertise, including subjects, compatibility modes, schema references, schema evolution, reusable event contracts, and consumer-impact analysis.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience designing and governing enterprise information models, conceptual, logical, and physical data models, schemas, and data standards across complex, highly integrated, business-critical operational environments. Experience integrating information across multiple operational applications and systems is required; transportation, railroad, logistics, transit, aviation, utilities, or similarly complex operational domain experience is strongly preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree in information technology or related discipline
• 10+ years related work experience
• Excellent written, presentation and verbal communications skills
• Demonstrated experience with Relational and NoSql technologies

Preferred:

• Master’s degree in engineering or computer science, or equivalent.
• Knowledge of distributed systems, middleware, API integration, event-driven design, and enterprise information management practices.