As a Data Engineer on our fares tech team, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the architecture and flow of fares data across systems. In this role, you will architect data solutions using modern engineering principles, ensuring scalability and reliability. Your competency in data modeling will be crucial for designing structures that support our business logic and analytical needs. Your analytical skills will be put to use tuning logic to optimizing data processing and retrieval performance.
This role demands a blend of technical acumen in data engineering tools and practices, strategic thinking for technology selection, and the interpersonal skills to collaborate effectively within the team and broader organization. Your contributions will directly impact the efficiency and effectiveness of our data-driven strategies, making this a critical and rewarding position in our company.
Skill requirements:
- Data high-level strategy
- Data project scoping
- Data project risk analysis
- Terraform for infrastructure as code practices
- Data management on local environments.
- AWS resource utilization
- Continuous integration pipelines
- Data pipeline architecture
- Datasource quality analysis
- Data manipulation like Pandas/Polars
- Containerization and deployment.
- Data modeling
- Git workflows and PR review
- Business requirement technology translation
- SQL queries and performance optimization
- Python programming
- Communication skills
- Analytical thinking
- AWS data tools
- Data formats, such as Parquet
- Bonus:
- Experience with cross-language data platforms like Arrow.
- Advanced knowledge in data structure optimization and schema design.
Day to day experience:
- You will be partnered with the Fares Tech Program lead to identify urgent near-term data engineering needs and set long-term goals.
- You will meet regularly with internal stakeholders and external data providers to establish strategies and timelines to meet the MBTA's data objectives.
- You will also work “heads down” at times, focused on data processing changes, infrastructure improvements, reviewing PRs, or investigating an issue.
Place inside company/reporting structure:
- TID is a relatively flat organization. In this role, you report to the Director of Engineering and work collaboratively with the Fares Tech Program Manager.
Benefits and advantages:
- While working in government may not be glamorous, this is a long-term contract role with compensation comparable to similar private sector roles.
- Flexibility and remote work
- Working with one of the most advanced tech teams working in government
- Work-life balance: we rarely exceed a 40-hour workweek
- A social mission to improve the rider experience and make public transit viable and appealing to the public
- A results-oriented culture where we frequently deploy new features or services
- The ability to be of service to both riders and operations staff who depend on accurate and timely transit data
Hiring process:
- We are committed to equal opportunity
- 30-minute screening with the hiring manager
- 90-minute final round interview with team members
- The final round includes a technical skills assessment exercise
- Guaranteed response (no ghosting!)
Required experience and certifications:
- At least 3 years of experience working with Python in a technical role that involved data processing.
- Success working in an environment where you managed your own task priorities, applied strategic judgment, and communicate with stakeholders and vendors directly.
Location:
This role can be hybrid or remote but prefer someone to be local to MA.
As a contracted role for the MBTA, we are unable to hire candidates who would perform their work in California, Connecticut, Washington DC, Hawaii, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico.
At this time, we are only able to hire US residents who will reside in the US for the duration of their employment
Compensation:
Pay rate range is $85 - $115 per hour (W-2), up to 1880 hours per year.
What We Do
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, often referred to as the MBTA or simply The T, is the public operator of most bus, subway, commuter rail and ferry systems in the greater Boston, Massachusetts, area. The MBTA is the largest transit provider in New England, and the fifth largest in the country. The MBTA directly operates or contracts out for service using eight different modes: heavy rail, light rail, bus rapid transit, local/express bus, trackless trolley, commuter rail, commuter boat, and paratransit. In Boston, 55% of all work trips and 42% of all trips into downtown are made by transit. The MBTA district is made up of 175 communities with a total population of 4.7 million. Almost three-quarters of all Massachusetts residents live within the MBTA service area.
