Jr Data Engineer (ETL)
Title: Software Engineer – ETLLocation: On-site at Corning, NYDuration: 12 MonthsWork Schedule: Typical 40 hours per week. May require working weekends/holidays or longer days to support projects. Travel: Limited to no travel required, and no on-call requirements.The manager is open to non-local candidates willing to relocate at their own expensesOnly W2 candidates are eligible for this position. Third-party or C2C candidates will not be consideredDescription:Education and Experience:This position focuses on Data pipelines & workflows• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, data engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience. May consider an Associate if the candidate has an additional 3-5 years of experience than what is required.• 2+ years of professional experience in data engineering, ETL development, or related work, or equivalent hands-on experience• Experience or interest in scientific software, materials science, research environments, or technically complex domains is a plusScope of Position:1. Embed within a cross-functional Agile team, participating in sprint planning, stand-ups, backlog refinement, and technical discussions.2. Design, build, troubleshoot, and maintain ETL/ELT workflows that support application functionality, analytics, reporting, and scientific workflows.3. Develop and manage data pipelines using Apache Airflow, ensuring reliable orchestration, scheduling, monitoring, and recovery of data processes.4. Work with stakeholders including software developers, scientists, and engineers, to understand data sources, workflow requirements, and downstream data needs.5. Extract, transform, validate, and load data across systems, including relational databases such as Postgres SQL and Oracle.6. Write, optimize, and maintain complex SQL queries, scripts, and transformation logic to support operational and analytical use cases.7. Troubleshoot data quality issues, ETL failures, pipeline bottlenecks, and schema inconsistencies; identify root causes and implement durable solutions.8. Support database exploration, data validation, and troubleshooting using tools such as DBeaver and related database utilities.9. Evaluate and help adopt new data tools and technologies, including lightweight analytics and transformation solutions (e.g. DuckDB) where appropriate.10. Collaborate with engineering teams to support reliable integration between data pipelines, applications, APIs, and downstream consumers.11. Assist with schema evolution, data modeling, migration planning, and data consistency across systems.12. Document pipeline logic, data dependencies, transformation rules, and operational procedures to support maintainability and team knowledge sharing.13. Help improve data engineering standards, observability, testing practices, and operational reliability across the team.14. Regularly interact with scientists and engineers to understand research and technical workflows; experience in scientific or research environments is a strong plus.Technical Skills – 2+ years (or Commensurate Experience):1. Experience designing, building, and troubleshooting ETL/ELT pipelines2. Hands-on experience with workflow orchestration tools, preferably Apache Airflow3. Strong experience writing and optimizing SQL4. Experience working with relational databases, especially PostgreSQL and Oracle5. Ability to develop and maintain data transformations, validation steps, and pipeline logic across multiple systems6. Experience with database tools such as DBeaver or similar for query development, exploration, and troubleshooting7. Familiarity with modern data processing and analytical tools such as DuckDB or interest in evaluating emerging data technologies8. Understanding of data modeling, schema design, data integrity, and performance tuning9. Experience troubleshooting pipeline failures, performance issues, and inconsistent or incomplete datasets10. Familiarity with scripting or programming for pipeline development and automation; Python experience is strongly preferred11. Understanding of version control and collaborative development workflows12. Experience supporting production data systems with an emphasis on reliability, maintainability, and clear documentationTeam Skills:1. Confident collaborating with developers, scientists, analysts, and product stakeholders2. Able to gather and clarify technical and data requirements and translate them into scalable data solutions3. Strong communication skills around pipeline status, data quality issues, dependencies, and tradeoffs4. Comfortable handling ambiguity, improving incomplete processes, and helping define best practices5. Proactive in identifying opportunities to improve data workflows, tooling, performance, and operational stabilitySoft Skills:1. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills2. High attention to detail and commitment to data quality, consistency, and reliability3. Demonstrated initiative in troubleshooting issues and improving pipeline robustness4. Curiosity and willingness to evaluate and adopt new tools, technologies, and approaches5. Ability to balance immediate operational needs with long-term maintainability and scalability6. Comfortable proposing improvements, collaborating across teams, and building trust through reliable executionInterview Process: Phone screen, then either an onsite interview for local candidates or a Teams Meeting for non-local candidates